>purchased from a little-known Chinese company
Translation: Some bean counting executive in the corporate headquarters said, "We can get our parts at half price by going with the ones I found on Temu instead of our existing, rigorously-vetted suppliers. I don't care about safety or quality. Cost is everything!"
I hope both companies get a twenty billion dollar fine.
You can't treat aviation like you're building a cheaper coffeemaker.
Being went from making planes themselves to outsourcing everything they could to save money
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2024/02/12/boeing-is-haunted-by-two-decades-of-outsourcing/
My teacher was in love with with his new buzzword, outsourcing, couple decades ago. Tried to argue against it, but it was futile. Hopefully he outsourced himself to fourth level in hell.
And layoffs don't forget all the layoffs, like why do they need all those software engineers? Indian day coders can do the same thing for a fraction of the cost! I'm a genius!!!!
Sounds like McKinseyâŚtheyâre hitting the company I work for right now and offshoring a ton of engineering. Going to be a fucking nightmare. Fuck McKinsey.
Some banks here outsourced a bunch of functions to India in the 2000s.
A decade later they had to start in sourcing (another decade long project) at huge cost because it didn't work out. Cost savings were wiped out by the cost of poor service and corruption (people selling client data).
Now that they undid the damage and stabilized things, a new breed of young execs have come up with a new way to increase profit by reducing costs! Outsourcing!
> Now that they undid the damage and stabilized things, a new breed of young execs have come up with a new way to increase profit by reducing costs! Outsourcing!
"The tide comes in, The tide goes out. You cant explain that!"
EDIT: I've mused this for years; the idea that each 'generation' or wave of middle/senior managers that come into a workplace environment want to try and greatly differentiate themselves from their predecessors. An easy way to do this is do things contra to their predecessors and then wordsmith/spin the results into "see, my way is much superior to !".
Idk why anybody pays those people for consulting when they come in with the exact same strategy every time: "Trade on the good name you've built through years of delivering quality goods and services, and instead start delivering bad goods and services for the same price. It'll work for like 5 years before people start noticing, and your shareholders will love you until year 6. That'll be $10M in consulting fees, thanks."
Theyâre a shelter for the C-Suite. The decision to layoff, downsize, restructure, offshore, etc⌠has already been made. Companies pay McKinsey to come in, âmake the recommendationâ, and take the blame.
More and more, the crap software I've seen outsourced to India makes me fear for American quality.
Once, I waded through a **150+** line IF statement to calculate the file name of the icon thumbnail graphic based on a file's filename extension.
In pseudocode went like this.
Get the filename extension.
Convert the extension to lowercase.
If the extension is "doc", then the icon's filename is "doc.png",
else
if the extension is "docx", then the icon's filename is "docx.png",
else
if the extension is "pdf", then the icon's filename is "pdf.png",
else
if the extension is "txt", then the icon's filename is "txt.png",
else
if the extension is "jpg", then the icon's filename is "jpg.png",
else
if the extension is "jpeg", then the icon's filename is "jpeg.png",
else
if the extension is "xls", then the icon's filename is "xls.png"
elseâŚ
Until 153 lines of if/then/else were completed.
See the problem? And what if new file types somehow matter?
All of that can be broken down into about **5** lines of code.
Get the filename extension.
Add ".png" to the end of it.
Check if the file exists.
If it doesn't exist, define the icon filename as "default.png"
That's. Fucking. It.
Mindboggling is an understatement. I've seen/fixed code in about 3 cases where there was a **13** to **15** ***page*** if/then/else statement.
Decades ago, there was one of these in the main app for one of the companies that printed photos on mugs. ShutterFly or SnapFish.
Back when I worked for oracle they decided to outsource the creation of a library to India. I was supposed to take a new version of the jar every Monday and just slot it into the project. 2 minutes of work, or it was supposed to be.
What actually happened was anything that interacted with the jar wouldnât work. So Iâd unzip the thing and see that they had syntax that wouldnât even compile most of the time. So Iâd fix that, but since the contract said the jar had to be from them I had to send the, the fixes and tell them to make the jar again. The next day Iâd get the jar and theyâd have only implemented half of the fixes. So I comb through the code again to figure out what they missed, send another email, and on and on it went until Wednesday or Thursday every week. On top of they their code was never formatted well, theyâd put several statements on the same line, indentation was wrong, everything you could think of.
That went on for the better part of a year before we could convince whoever needed convincing that we should just write the library ourselves.
> Back when I worked for oracle
Oh, Deadwood City? I used to have lunch there in the mid 1990s and loved the inexpensive sushi.
> Stuff
IF DIDN'T EVEN COMPILE?! They sent code that couldn't compile. Sweet mother fucking shoot me now.
What you outline is what I LIVED. You take your most expensive people to fix the problems of your cheapest people.
One team of mine snuck in an upgrade from Objective-C to Swift past me using what I TOLD THEM NOT TO USE, the VIPER architecture. VIPER requires about 5 objects all referring to each other - a recipe for retain cycles. Now, this team strongly linked their delegate object in MVC which is rule #1 of what you DON'T DO. It's memory management 101.
A few months into the upgrade, I started to notice random reboots of my computer and our app would crash after maybe 45 mins. I'd see things that violated the MacOS memory model where one app seemingly caused another to suffer. I'd see red checkerboard patterns when menus opened and in the Terminal. The computer seemed slower. Then it would just reboot.
So, I started digging in, running heap and leaks and writing shell scripts to sample the memory.
Are you sitting down? Because you need to be sitting down.
1400 memory leaks.
EVERY screen that they coded in VIPER had 5 to 7 objects. All with strong memory references to each other. At one point, I had a 30+ node retain cycle I one of their objects. Opening the Activity Monitor showed an enormous amount of mach ports (the endpoints of object intercommunication channels) that increased as the app ran through its tests. Oddly enough, the windowing system for the Mac had more ports allocated. While we were running Xcode and running through our automated tests, about 35 - 45 mins, ***the Mac would reboot***.
As the tests were run, none of the previous screens could release memory. So, as Xcode ran our app in the iOS Simulator it requested more ports. Then the kernel asked the window server for more ports. Then the window server asks window driver and the driver asks the window kernel for another port. At over 210,000 ports, the window kernel says, "nope". And in that case, the windowing system shuts down since no more ports are available and with the window server shutting down, this either logs the user out of their session⌠or reboots the whole machine.
I have this all on video. I removed in to the machine and recorded the whole screen in QuickTime.
HOLY FUCK. The checkerboard patterns I was seeing were caused by low memory in the video subsystem.
MOTHER. FUCKERS.
> That went on for the better part of a year before we could convince whoever needed convincing that we should just write the library ourselves.
And yes, I feel your pain.
It's the teaching the same thing to someone 3 times that's the complete suck. I finally coded one guy out of existence in 30 minutes with a god damned AppleScript. An AppleScript, FFS.
Yeah, didnât even compile. I tried writing unit tests for them and said these must pass before you can send me the jar. I found code in the jar that was an attempt to bypass the unit tests, but that also didnât compile. They pushed back for a while but when I insisted on the tests passing they ended up writing a bunch of Java that wasnât part of the jar they sent and ran the unit tests against that. Iâll give you one guess as to whether they wrote the code specifically to the tests so the method was empty aside from a return that was only what the test was asking for.
It was the biggest pain in the ass. I feel like our experiences are much more common that they should be. I, too, feel your pain.
A shit coder will cost $20/hr and take 6 hours.
A good coder will cost $60/hr and take <1 hour.
But of course, to a bean counter the good coder costs 3x as much, since all they can count is lines of code.
It's funny, even penny pinchers go with the second to lowest bidder. Lowest bidder always cutting corners somewhere or outright lying to secure the contract.
More evidence that, as a company expands, it inherently corrupts itself in the interest of unfettered capitalism. There's no control on it, so it becomes pure greed over time.
As the years go on, we see more companies going this way. All in the interest of shareholders getting more fat stacks of cash and no care about anything else. In the end, they will jump ship as soon as it is profitable to do so and the company will be left a husk that collapses in on itself.
Compromising integrity for share price is pure short term greed.
Of course, they saved the company a lot of money and made their superiors look good. When performance reviews come around that will earn them their raise
Oh no, means they'll have to jump ship and waft on golden parachutes to the next company they're gonna run into the ground. Or they could just retire with their millions of dollars.
DANGOO Titanium Left wing Fastening bolts PACK OF 50 ultra high Quality bolt set for Boeing Airbus Embraer certified to 1000000 psi LEAD FREE organizer case With purchase
There is a DFAR requirement that states preference for domestic specialty metals. I cannot recall if titanium is considered a specialty metal or not (Iâve been out of aerospace manufacturing for a while). Boeing used to go hard on us for AlNiCo magnets, despite them falling under an exception to that requirement. Boeing is typically very stringent with their supply chain when they buy assemblies, but it seems their own direct purchasing processes are more lenient.
I am shocked Boeing got away with this as THE aircraft manufacturer in the US.
I worked in aircraft procurement for an airline and the paper trails were onerous for everything that I bought. Multiple times, I ended up having to buy 10 cent bolts for $100 each just because of documentation issues.
The FAA is very strict on this stuff
That's what happens when they hire board members from the most toxic US company, they hired [2 bottom line fucking blood suckers from GE](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/business/general-electric-split-explained/index.html) who managed to run GE into the ground. They poison every company they touch, and boeing took them and now we are here.
I worked in aerospace manufacturing (seats) and yeah, the paper trail required was insane. We once had to throw out a large quantity of fiberglass prepreg because our freezer temperature logging setup failed and we couldn't adequately prove that it had stayed below a certain threshold. And that was for *non-structural* seat components.
It's simple.
https://simpleflying.com/faa-some-airbus-boeing-jets-counterfeit-titanium-falsified-certification/
The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier.
> "Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records. Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records."
> The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier that sold titanium to Turkish company Turkish Aerospace Industries in 2019. Documentation from this Chinese supplier claimed that the titanium had been sourced from another Chinese firm, **Baoji Titanium Industry** - however, **Baoji Titanium** has confirmed that it did not provide this batch of titanium ***"and has no business dealing with this company."***
And from the inspectors at Spirit AeroSystems:
> "This is about titanium that has entered the supply system via documents that have been counterfeited. When this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production."
On the other side, it's China, they're known for showing you samples that wil have nothing to do with what you're going to *buy* from them. For example, medicine. They don't care about safety etc, they were going to send your counterfeit from the beginning.
[Chinaâs counterfeit medicine trade booming - PMC (nih.gov)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774384/)
There's a reason why Chinese people fly expecially to Japan to buy medicine, diapers etc. They KNOW they can't trust their own country with what they are pretending they're selling you.
Fun fact, Japans got the best endoscopists and anything that hits their med tech market (and any new procedures developed) hits the West 10 years later. So everyone should be going to Japan for medicine.Â
A lot of biomedical engineering stuff is this way too. All Japan does is makes sure it's safe/won't kill people and they'll let it rip to see if it actually works.
Because no oneâs actually checking and itâs cheaper.
On the rare occasions they do check itâs better for profits to beg for forgiveness than purchase domestically produced materials that cost more.
I will say, for how inflated our military budget is, the cost of jets is so expensive because they pay for receipt confirmation and sourcing for every single aspect of every single pieces of all of those planes. If they get a faulty screw anywhere, theyâve paid to have a clear and apparent paper trail back to exactly who messed up
Yep, dunno who downvoted you but I worked with a military supplier. Every single fucking component had complete auditing and certification trails no matter how small the part. It was hilarious that bags of screws also had expiration dates too lol. It was like 20 years (the max) but that also applies, everything needs a lot and expiration date even if itâs impossible for it to expire
And yetâŚ
https://lawyerinc.com/biggest-northrop-grumman-lawsuits-in-company-history/
The cost of things isnât as expensive because of the cost of compliance.
The cost is high because of the rampant fraud, waste, abuse, and the captive audience of the U.S. government who is always willing to pay for something - and a very limited âbig playerâ pool of companies (Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, etc).
These companies use to âbet the farmâ and invest their own cash to develop quality products in hopes the government would order 5,000 of them. Now the government foots the bill for research, development, testing, errors and corrections, corporate overhead, CEO salaries, share buybacks and dividends, etc.
These company offer no real innovation or independence from the government RFPs. They are just the state captured industries people who complain about communism talk about but donât realize they already exist. Itâs welfare for retired military folks.
You can buy anything in China. You can get extremely high quality parts there. You can also get garbage pop can metal shit there. It all depends on what youâre willing to payâŚ..and companies outsourcing to China are typically wanting to pay very little, hence everyone thinking China only makes shit tier stuff.
People tend to forget that most of the high end electronics are also made in China. Often at the same factories.
It's just that some companies pay for higher quality materials and testing standards and others don't. And then often the factory "borrows" the design and makes their own version to whatever specs they want as well.
Its FAR FAR FAR more complex than this since a plane fell out of the sky in the 90s due to FAKE TITANIUM PARTS.
We even found them on air force one.. we discovered that 90% of all parts brokers, sold fake parts. Most the time it doesnt matter, to be honest, unless its structural. The wrong screws on a bathroom door wont kill you. The wrong ones on the rudders will.
SInce the 90s we thought this was mostly fixed, checks showed a massive drop in counterfeit. AND NOW THEY ARE BACK.
of course they are cheaper, thats why people buy counterfeit anything. the point is we mostly solved this problem and its back.
It's also about at which level in the supply chain the counterfeiting is known. Are Beoing and Airbus knowingly buying lower cost parts with a higher risk of counterfeit? Are the parts manufacturers knowingly buying counterfeit titanium? Are the materials manufacturers knowingly selling counterfeit titanium? Airbus and Boeing should both be testing their parts more thoroughly, but the fact that it's both makes me feel like the actual counterfeiting is happening at a level higher than either jet manufacturer.
A non-paywalled article in the aviation subreddit discussed the titanium was found at Spirit who makes fuselage and wing components for the 737, 787, and A220. Once the counterfeits were discovered it was reported to the FAA by Boeing and the investigation began.
Also note that the A220 is not a âstandardâ Airbus but a re-branded bombardier plane thatâs made in a joint venture.
One of the things about it is that itâs partly made in the US which makes more sense in that it uses the same supplier.
Wait so this Spirit Aerosystems is different than Spirit Airlines? And they both suck and have earned up a reputation for terrible reliability? The probability of confusion, your honor ...
> Spirit who makes fuselage and wing components for the 737, 787, and A220
They make it for the A350 as well.
Airbus most production by Spirit AeroSystems for them is in the US still, Ireland only is an extension that does wings for A220, A350 is all US. Scotland does mostly Airbus but isn't as big.
[Spirit AeroSystems does more than just A220, they also do fuselage/wings for A350](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems).
> Spirit also produces parts for Airbus, including fuselage sections and front wing spars for the A350 and the wings for the A220
> Spirit also manufactures major fuselage and/or wing sub-assemblies for current Airbus jetliners, mostly in its Tulsa, Oklahoma factory
They make fuselage's for the A350 at the same plants as they do for Boeing 737 + 787. The A220 plant was added for additional production of wings for that plane but most work for Airbus by Spirit Aerosystems is in the US in same production facilities.
> On October 31, 2019, Spirit acquired Bombardier Aviation's aerostructures activities and aftermarket services operations in Northern Ireland (Short Brothers) and Morocco, and its aerostructures maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Dallas, with the acquisition completing a year later in October 2020. The deal gives Spirit a bigger place in Airbus' supply chain, in particular with the wings for the Airbus A220 that are produced in the Belfast plant
Spirit AeroSystems about a fifth of the production is for Airbus. The point is they are a third party supplier where this happened and issues have happened on quality to both manufacturers. Boeing had more demand from them.
Boeing spun them out in early 2000s and they have a considerable business with Airbus as well. Boeing will probably bring them back under Boeing to get quality under control and this will hit Airbus production as well.
> In March 2024, Boeing started talks to acquire Spirit AeroSystems. The talks came after years of losses and quality control problems at Spirit. Both Boeing and Spirit faced intense scrutiny after an uncontrolled decompression on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, that was occurred when a door plug (a structure installed to replace an optional emergency exit door) on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, which was not bolted in place due to a manufacturing error, blew out. In a statement, Boeing said, âWe believe that the reintegration of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystemsâ manufacturing operations would further strengthen aviation safety, improve quality and serve the interests of our customers, employees, and shareholders.â
Airbus is trying to buy the Ireland production but they may not get it. So Boeing will be suppling wings there and fuselage/wings in the US to Airbus should they bring it back under Boeing at the Tulsa, Ireland and Scotland plant.
[Airbus has explored buying Spirit A220 wings plant, sources say](https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/airbus-has-explored-buying-spirit-a220-wings-plant-sources-2024-03-01/)
[All of Spirit Aerosystems facilities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems#Manufacturing_facilities). The Ireland and Scotland plants are additional capacity for A220 but not the main place for Airbus work by Spirit Aerospace, they are specialized capacity/fulfillment arms.
It would be a bit of ridiculous bar to ask companies to verify the materials of their parts when those parts arenât produced in house. It should be a reasonable expectation that you get what you pay for.
I AM shocked that suppliers producing parts for the aviation industry arenât subject to regular thorough governmental and competitor audits.
This is why material audits are important. Anytime I worked with aerospace they needed a shit ton of samples of material to go with the parts. Not sure what happened here tbh. Every part could be then compared back to the samples and it should be 1:1 if theyâre from the same batch.
I think this is obviously from people cheaping out on quality assurance.
Someone signed off on these somewhere or lots of people did. Hold them accountable.
I'm a little alarmed by how vague the disclosure is on details. Someone is holding back information to CYA.
I work in manufacturing, and I will say that when we procure a raw material, it undergoes thorough QA testing to ensure it meets spec before it goes anywhere near production.
Why these aviation companies aren't doing the same thing is inexcusable. Because saving a penny per screw is nothing compared to human lives lost.
I also work in manufacturing, and it isn't a surprise when parts from international suppliers are of the wrong materials. Dare I mention China?
While the components I make are not consumer facing, the wrong materials still put my own life and other in danger and can result in millions of dollars of lost revenue because the wrong materials can break damn expensive equipment. When some of this equipment breaks....Ive seen it...molten metal is flying through the air. It also produces a 140 dB boom. Not good in the confined space of a factory.
> It also produces a 140 dB boom. Not good in the confined space of a factory.
I used to work in a factory that made propane tanks. The weld line stamped them out of rolls of steel, welded the parts together, and tested the welds under high pressure in steel tanks. I was on the paint line on the other side of the building, but you could hear the BOOM through the whole factory when a weld failed. We called them 'bombs', and whenever one went off, everybody at the facility would let rip a 'WHOOOOO!' that would make Ric Flair proud.
I almost miss that job.
Basically every material purchased that goes on an aircraft has to has certifications with it that follow it throughout the entire supply chain. There are audits, but generally everyone trusts that the certs are accurate. If the certs are being falsified thats criminal fraud.
> It would be a bit of ridiculous bar to ask companies to verify the materials of their parts when those parts arenât produced in house.
This may seem ridiculous to you, but in some industries--such as the food and medicine industries--this is the case. No manufacturer of those types of products is going to use them until they are verified. Tested for microbes, contaminants, and of course verifying that it is what it is claimed to be.
Because it comes down to this: If someone dies using your product, it's going to be viewed by everyone as *your* fault, regardless of who's responsible for the faulty component.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers extensively test raw materials before use.
Rather than auditing 100s of raw material suppliers, auditing the manufacturer and ensuring they have adequate internal quality control is an easier solution.
I work in Materials Management for a small manufacturer and we have to have material certs and traceability for everything. Not only that but all major OEMs that fall under Automotive and Aerospace are certainly requiring their supply base to be audited and certified (ISO/IATF/AS, etc.). The only way this shit happens is if players are knowingly lying for the sake of profit and they will certainly have an easily tracked paper trail with signatures.
The titanium company (out of China) was providing falsified paperwork. If there's a paper trail I doubt the People's Republic will be eager to help investigators run it down.
If companies in China commonly do this, why aren't US manufacturers required to verify the nature and quality of the supplies they purchase from China?
Because they do *ish*. The due diligence test samples and site audits always check out.
Everyone always ignores that once there's an approved vendor, the vendor just produces fake paperwork with jank smelt standards until the next scheduled audit.
In other sectors, you can buy 10 steel castings for the price of one and get it faster out of India or China. If one is good, and you can weld repair sand voids in 3, you're ahead of the game.
If you audit their QA and let them do the entire manufacturing when they pass? Well, now you're 10/10 for 1/5 the cost, and everyone has paperwork in order so nobody saw it coming when it's all faked testing.
Yeah but there are still spot checks, xray material checks, or other signs that are fairly unobtrusive and affordable that can be done mid process once manufactured
They may in a situation like this. Not helping would look bad, and be an indirect risk to Chinese citizens (a lot of whom will be on planes using those counterfeit parts). Given the significant chance that the company in question will have been scamming others, potentially *including* companies the CCP likes, this is the perfect case for them to slam down hard and look like good global citizens and to trumpet as part of their own anti-corruption efforts.
Bullshit. Those certs can be faked with damn photoshop and have been before. There was a story like 3 years ago about a weld house faking all their certs. How often do you want to do audits to guarantee to all of us that 0% fraud gets through?
Then OEMs aren't doing their due diligence. My parts have normal frequency requirements for independent destructive testing. Even if I forged cert/origination documents, I would never pass 3rd party testing.
[Partnair Flight 394](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnair_Flight_394) is the case that caused a huge investigation of maintenance/parts sourcing practices.
[Docudrama episode of it from Mayday, a TV series that investigates air-related disasters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFd71FaL98)
This scam goes back really far in history. I remember coffin ships in the British Navy. They were supposed to use copper bolts to hold the hull together because it did not corrode, but instead they would use an iron bolt, with a copper cover. And the ship's would just sink with all hands without warning. Crazy that they do not think that people will be greedy and do this kind of thing. It should be punishable with extreme severity.
Because executives pressure employees to make shortsighted decisions like this. With all of Boeings management problems, how the hell can you not see this is a top down problem?
100% for sure. If your company goals are cheap materials in, expensive stuff out, and you incentivise purchasing to get the best deal through performance metrics it won't end well. My company just changed their metrics to stop purchasing from tying up capital in material that we won't use for 6 months because it was "a good deal".
Well, for starters this was Spirit AeroSystems that was purchasing this titanium, not Boeing, so Boeing's management problems had absolutely nothing to do with it. The only ties Boeing had to it at all is they were buying parts from Spirit that included the titanium (as was Airbus).
And some of them even get kickbacks from sketchy vendors.
âHey, so nice to meet you. Oh, you like surfing? Well I have this lovely beach house you could use for a couple weeks this summer. Absolutely no problem at all. Sure thing, the code to the door is in this envelope which may or may not have $20,000 in it. Also, howâs that RFQ coming? Have our two competitors provided quotes yet? They have? HmmâŚwe were thinking maybe somewhere around $30/unit, but we may have some flexibility- oh, $28 already came in from one, huh? Hmm. Okay well, youâll have our quote tomorrow morning for sure. Have fun at the beach house! No problem at all!â
Then the next morning the quote comes in at $26.75 and the new vendor gets the business.
And the purchaser hits their KPI.
In a roundabout way, you're probably right, but they would've purchased standardized grade metal alloys and paid appropriately. It was probably not cheaper for Boeing but for the supplier. What likely happened is that QA was gutted and didn't have the resources to test, so they either replied on supplier test reports or specific samples sent for testing and so it didn't get caught. If you want to scare yourself, look in to counterfeit steel in the construction industry and remember that about half the bridges in the US are older than their lifespan.
People don't understand that corporations scam other corporations just as hard as they scam ordinary people.
The company I work at has been fed so much bullshit about wonder materials and next-gen processes by our suppliers and it's very rarely not a deliberate lie.
Lol gottem...
Seriously though, there's a lot more to this. Every part on commercial ~~aircraft~~ airframe is traced from the time the ingot is forged until final installation. I used to work for a shop that made aircraft parts and the ingots come in first hand. Each one is etched with identifiable information which is confirmed before being used and then updated as it's machined. Each step in the process is meticulously documented. You can take a part of any modern aircraft, grab the serial number and trace every single thing that's ever happened to that part up to and including what the temperature and humidity was like that day.
The issue here isn't that counterfeit metal was used. It's that this traceability process failed somehow. The top concern would be some sort of espionage.
Same thing in the nuclear industry. Granted, there are different levels of QA/QC traceability dependent upon the classification of the part in relation to its function in nuclear safety. I imagine the aircraft industry would follow this model.
My guess in this case is that âcounterfeitâ would most likely be a part with questionable traceability. It probably is even materially identical to what is prescribed, just without the much more expensive QA/QC paper trail that follows a part from being dug out of the ground to installation.
There are extensive checks and balances in aviation products to ensure no bogus parts are fitted to aircraft. How all the saftey nets were unable to catch this is what the investigation would be about, not the motivation behind it, which is obvious
Theyâre investigating the how, not the why. The how is probably more like because QA oversight didnât do enough spot testing and Iâm sure the supplier used falsified performance testing documents.
I used to work in distribution and we sold to the mil/aero community and this is a huge issue still. There are a number of shady âgrayâ market vendors that resell products from suppliers that they arenât franchised for.
Typically these gray market vendors buy overstock, parts that didnât make QC requirements and used stock thatâs refurbished. Some of these vendors donât disclose these facts and donât supply paperwork or forged paperwork. We used to use suppliers like that but stopped once we got a shipment of counterfeit switches that almost made it to a large govt contractor. We would have lost tens of millions in sales a year if they hadnât been found and intercepted before hitting the customers dock (we literally drove there before UPS delivered and took the shipment back).
We also spearheaded a new QC standard that was for military/aero customers that had extensive documentation about every detail of the company and where the parts came from before weâd use them again and 90% couldnât supply the relevant paperwork.
Let me tell you, it was super fun explaining this to the Adjutant General of the Army.
I worked for a company that did products for military/aero, not a base level supplier like you but finished products. I still have dreams about doing the paperwork for our 100% American made (minus the milled aluminum case) product, I can't imagine trying to do that paperwork when you don't know the exact origin.
Oh man, one of our customers was trying to put one of our devices onto a satellite once, we thought "cool! That's gonna be a cool thing to brag about." He sent us that paperwork, we took one look at it and said, "nah, our shit isn't going to space."
People say the government is 'inefficient', but in my experience, the government insists on a higher standard and insists on constant proof that the standard is being met. Of course those costs are going to be higher than a private company that will fuck over their customers to make more money.
Having to go through the task of tracking material issues on aircraft is a nightmare.
A few years back, our main aluminum supplier contacted us to let us know that they had discovered bad temperature sensors in their heat treatment equipment. They basically had to invalidate all of the 2024 they had sent us since the previous replacement, which was about 6 months. In that time, we had installed hundreds of after-market parts and STC packages.
We had to go through all of our records to figure out the specific batches of material that were used for each detail part that was installed, and then check our stress analysis to see if the worse aluminum could still handle the loads (and then send out emergency replacement kits anywhere it didn't).
That process took us a full year, and some aircraft were grounded for half of that (any planes we still had on hand were fixed on site).
For a small company that only does a couple of aircraft per month in a limited scale, even a 6 month slip was awful. I can't imagine what it does at OEM scale.
It was. That's how it ended up in both Boeing and Airbus. And the titanium had certificates of conformity saying it game from a known and major supplier of titanium but those certificates were fake.
By the time it got to even got to Spirit Aerosystems it was already built into subassemblies (parts). There's a lot of evidence to think it is real titanium and maybe even the same alloy, but the parts don't pass all the quality tests so the way the material was worked/subassemblies produced seems like it cannot be right.
The problem was initially found because the parts had a different appearance than usual. That started the investigation.
Highlights why itâs so important to empower line employees to speak up when something is off about the processes they live in every day, and managers to actually pay attention and elevate these concerns.
Iâm basically parroting that policy - itâs something that a lot of manufacturers have adopted, sometimes whole-cloth from Toyota. To the point where all the same nomenclature is used, like Gemba Walks.
Found the one person in this whole thread who actually read the article!
There are probably hundreds of people just in this thread who have no problem taking the time to post their opinions but arenât willing to take the time to read a few paragraphs of facts. The result is all these posts with wildly inaccurate statements. I honestly donât understand it.
If any sociologists are reading this, this deserves to be studied. Is this some kind of modern functional illiteracy? I can technically read but I refuse to. But Iâll still share opinions with people about the things I didnât read while pretending Iâm informed. Or maybe itâs that I donât want to read facts, because reasons, but I do want to read the opinions of strangers, and then parrot those opinions as my own?
HAECO has been a British owned company since its founding in British owned Hong Kong and is has been owned by a British holding company since 1975 and the only things that they do that happen in China is MRO. Their seating is manufactured entirely in the U.S. since they just rebranded an American seating manufacturer. What are you on about lol.
Okay okay enough with the cheap jabs at Boeing, folks; Airbus also got this issue, so you may get a fuselage with pinholes on a Boeing or wings with the same on an Airbus. I just hope whoever falsified the certifications gets held accountable with real consequences for putting so many lives in danger.
Is Russia still one of the biggest producers of titanium? If that's the case, I can see them wanting to get back at what we did to them during the Cold War when we smuggled out tons and tons of titanium through CIA front companies and llc's for the SR-71 Blackbird program that was explicitly used to spy on Russians.
20 years ago there was a big kerfuffle with contaminated Russian titanium getting into aircraft parts. Apparently they decommissioned some old submarines for scrap/recycling. As I recall, the issue was the hatches (titanium) were mounted on hinges made from some sort of tungsten alloy. Rather than disassembling them, the just cut the hinges. When the hatches got melted down so did the tungsten hinge half, contaminating the batch. They had to track where all the material went, what parts got made out of it, and replace the contaminated parts as necessary. It was quite a mess.
I notice that I am confused. Tungsten melts at 3422°C compared to titanium's 1668°C. If you melt the titanium, any tungsten (which is almost 5x as dense as titanium) should sink to the bottom as a solid, right?
Russia was third, behind China and Japan. China exports a little bit more than half of the total world supply of titanium sponge. For reference, Ukraine was the 6th largest exporter.
Wut.
I used to be in heavy manufacturing and we'd do regular material sampling and testing several times a shift to guarantee performance and quality. How do you *not* do that if you're building fucking airplanes.
Know an electrical engineer terminated from Boeing for pointing out how noise from a cheaper part would impact the performance of other components in the satellite being built. The cheap part had been offered as a cost savings by a younger "hot shot" trying to outdo the older, experienced engineers in QC.
That's how counterfeit parts end up in mission-critical products. Not surprised.
Because they put shareholders buybacks as priority over safety and common sense.. they saw what they could get away with and it backfired.  Not surprising at all....there's going to be a 100 stories a year for the next decade...just like this.  Who knew the bottom was at the bottom line
I know it started as a meme but are we seriously looking at possibly every plane made by one of the largest producers in the world might have to be grounded and inspected? What happens if a lot or most of their planes are made with counterfeit materials?
I'm almost always in the people over react and need to calm down camp. But like. This is actually starting to affect my confidence in flying any plane made by Boeing and while we are at it. What makes all the other multibillion dollar "we have so much money regulations dont matter" plane makers from doing the same shit?
This is actually making me not want to fly even though I know how safe it is stastically.
There's a book by Michael Creighton (jurassic park writer among other things) called Airframe. Read it many many years ago.
Really cool book. Creepy how accurate it felt at the time and every time something happens to an aircraft.
Without reading the article I thought this will be some Chinese supplier. Then I thought, no that's racist, I better read the article until I find the source. Well I was right.
The shareholders need to take a much bigger hit. They demand stock buybacks, personnel cuts, irrationally high profits, they need to pay for their gamble. The government needs to fine them half their stock value, taking that value in newly issued shares. Appoint a careful person to vote using those shares.
Boeing is essentially underwritten by the US government, it should come with strings, lots of them.
It's simple.
https://simpleflying.com/faa-some-airbus-boeing-jets-counterfeit-titanium-falsified-certification/
The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier.
> "Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records. Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records."
> The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier that sold titanium to Turkish company Turkish Aerospace Industries in 2019. Documentation from this Chinese supplier claimed that the titanium had been sourced from another Chinese firm, **Baoji Titanium Industry** - however, **Baoji Titanium** has confirmed that it did not provide this batch of titanium ***"and has no business dealing with this company."***
And from the inspectors at Spirit AeroSystems:
> "This is about titanium that has entered the supply system via documents that have been counterfeited. When this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production."
You can ship a material with a certification sheet that does not actually represent the material. Maybe the requirements are that it has 1% vanadium and that's what the certification says it has, but it actually has 2% vanadium because it's cheaper (I don't know if these numbers make sense, they're just to get the point across).
The FAA didn't want to hire me as a metallurgist to take X-ray spectroscopy readings of the metals because sneaking counterfeit parts in is an inside job and disparaging veterans is a national priority.
This is also what a culture of low taxes gets you. Taxing profit is important because it dis incentivizes humongous profits.
When do you have 40-50% taxes on profits all of a sudden it makes sense to pay your workers well it makes sense to invest in good materials because at least youâre not paying taxes on that itâs going into the business but when you donât pay taxes, when corporations pay an effective zero % tax rate, of course theyâre going to squeeze every last penny out because they get to keep all the pennies.
I would never have the skills to be an exec, I would take too long thinking âmaybe thereâs a reason this titanium is **significantly** cheaper than the competitionâ leading me to hesitate and miss out on those amazing deals.
Did Trump or Biden whistleblow against Boeing and now Boeing is trying to murder them like they regularly murder their whistleblowing employees?
FREAKIN AIR FORCE ONE could have broken apart mid-air!
>purchased from a little-known Chinese company Translation: Some bean counting executive in the corporate headquarters said, "We can get our parts at half price by going with the ones I found on Temu instead of our existing, rigorously-vetted suppliers. I don't care about safety or quality. Cost is everything!" I hope both companies get a twenty billion dollar fine. You can't treat aviation like you're building a cheaper coffeemaker.
Being went from making planes themselves to outsourcing everything they could to save money https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2024/02/12/boeing-is-haunted-by-two-decades-of-outsourcing/
My teacher was in love with with his new buzzword, outsourcing, couple decades ago. Tried to argue against it, but it was futile. Hopefully he outsourced himself to fourth level in hell.
Props for referencing the appropriate circle of hell. 9th circle is always the poster boy of hell.
That was either sheer luck or subconcious playing tricks. đ
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here"
Reminds me of this economist who was on NPR arguing that Amazon was amazing for small business. Yeah, Chinese "small business".
ahh the capitalist way
And after they outsource to reputable companies, the company then saysâŚwe can cut costs even more by going with cheaper suppliers.
And layoffs don't forget all the layoffs, like why do they need all those software engineers? Indian day coders can do the same thing for a fraction of the cost! I'm a genius!!!!
Sounds like McKinseyâŚtheyâre hitting the company I work for right now and offshoring a ton of engineering. Going to be a fucking nightmare. Fuck McKinsey.
Some banks here outsourced a bunch of functions to India in the 2000s. A decade later they had to start in sourcing (another decade long project) at huge cost because it didn't work out. Cost savings were wiped out by the cost of poor service and corruption (people selling client data). Now that they undid the damage and stabilized things, a new breed of young execs have come up with a new way to increase profit by reducing costs! Outsourcing!
And the CEO is long gone w his rewards for the actions taken
> Now that they undid the damage and stabilized things, a new breed of young execs have come up with a new way to increase profit by reducing costs! Outsourcing! "The tide comes in, The tide goes out. You cant explain that!" EDIT: I've mused this for years; the idea that each 'generation' or wave of middle/senior managers that come into a workplace environment want to try and greatly differentiate themselves from their predecessors. An easy way to do this is do things contra to their predecessors and then wordsmith/spin the results into "see, my way is much superior to!".
John Oliver agrees [McKinsey: Last Week Tonight (HBO)](https://youtu.be/AiOUojVd6xQ?si=2VytNFHagwEda-cl)
Idk why anybody pays those people for consulting when they come in with the exact same strategy every time: "Trade on the good name you've built through years of delivering quality goods and services, and instead start delivering bad goods and services for the same price. It'll work for like 5 years before people start noticing, and your shareholders will love you until year 6. That'll be $10M in consulting fees, thanks."
Theyâre a shelter for the C-Suite. The decision to layoff, downsize, restructure, offshore, etc⌠has already been made. Companies pay McKinsey to come in, âmake the recommendationâ, and take the blame.
Surely ChatGPT can replace them! My pacemakers will be awesome!
I got the new 737 MCAS software written for only $350 on Fiverr!
More and more, the crap software I've seen outsourced to India makes me fear for American quality. Once, I waded through a **150+** line IF statement to calculate the file name of the icon thumbnail graphic based on a file's filename extension. In pseudocode went like this. Get the filename extension. Convert the extension to lowercase. If the extension is "doc", then the icon's filename is "doc.png", else if the extension is "docx", then the icon's filename is "docx.png", else if the extension is "pdf", then the icon's filename is "pdf.png", else if the extension is "txt", then the icon's filename is "txt.png", else if the extension is "jpg", then the icon's filename is "jpg.png", else if the extension is "jpeg", then the icon's filename is "jpeg.png", else if the extension is "xls", then the icon's filename is "xls.png" else⌠Until 153 lines of if/then/else were completed. See the problem? And what if new file types somehow matter? All of that can be broken down into about **5** lines of code. Get the filename extension. Add ".png" to the end of it. Check if the file exists. If it doesn't exist, define the icon filename as "default.png" That's. Fucking. It. Mindboggling is an understatement. I've seen/fixed code in about 3 cases where there was a **13** to **15** ***page*** if/then/else statement. Decades ago, there was one of these in the main app for one of the companies that printed photos on mugs. ShutterFly or SnapFish.
Back when I worked for oracle they decided to outsource the creation of a library to India. I was supposed to take a new version of the jar every Monday and just slot it into the project. 2 minutes of work, or it was supposed to be. What actually happened was anything that interacted with the jar wouldnât work. So Iâd unzip the thing and see that they had syntax that wouldnât even compile most of the time. So Iâd fix that, but since the contract said the jar had to be from them I had to send the, the fixes and tell them to make the jar again. The next day Iâd get the jar and theyâd have only implemented half of the fixes. So I comb through the code again to figure out what they missed, send another email, and on and on it went until Wednesday or Thursday every week. On top of they their code was never formatted well, theyâd put several statements on the same line, indentation was wrong, everything you could think of. That went on for the better part of a year before we could convince whoever needed convincing that we should just write the library ourselves.
> Back when I worked for oracle Oh, Deadwood City? I used to have lunch there in the mid 1990s and loved the inexpensive sushi. > Stuff IF DIDN'T EVEN COMPILE?! They sent code that couldn't compile. Sweet mother fucking shoot me now. What you outline is what I LIVED. You take your most expensive people to fix the problems of your cheapest people. One team of mine snuck in an upgrade from Objective-C to Swift past me using what I TOLD THEM NOT TO USE, the VIPER architecture. VIPER requires about 5 objects all referring to each other - a recipe for retain cycles. Now, this team strongly linked their delegate object in MVC which is rule #1 of what you DON'T DO. It's memory management 101. A few months into the upgrade, I started to notice random reboots of my computer and our app would crash after maybe 45 mins. I'd see things that violated the MacOS memory model where one app seemingly caused another to suffer. I'd see red checkerboard patterns when menus opened and in the Terminal. The computer seemed slower. Then it would just reboot. So, I started digging in, running heap and leaks and writing shell scripts to sample the memory. Are you sitting down? Because you need to be sitting down. 1400 memory leaks. EVERY screen that they coded in VIPER had 5 to 7 objects. All with strong memory references to each other. At one point, I had a 30+ node retain cycle I one of their objects. Opening the Activity Monitor showed an enormous amount of mach ports (the endpoints of object intercommunication channels) that increased as the app ran through its tests. Oddly enough, the windowing system for the Mac had more ports allocated. While we were running Xcode and running through our automated tests, about 35 - 45 mins, ***the Mac would reboot***. As the tests were run, none of the previous screens could release memory. So, as Xcode ran our app in the iOS Simulator it requested more ports. Then the kernel asked the window server for more ports. Then the window server asks window driver and the driver asks the window kernel for another port. At over 210,000 ports, the window kernel says, "nope". And in that case, the windowing system shuts down since no more ports are available and with the window server shutting down, this either logs the user out of their session⌠or reboots the whole machine. I have this all on video. I removed in to the machine and recorded the whole screen in QuickTime. HOLY FUCK. The checkerboard patterns I was seeing were caused by low memory in the video subsystem. MOTHER. FUCKERS. > That went on for the better part of a year before we could convince whoever needed convincing that we should just write the library ourselves. And yes, I feel your pain. It's the teaching the same thing to someone 3 times that's the complete suck. I finally coded one guy out of existence in 30 minutes with a god damned AppleScript. An AppleScript, FFS.
Yeah, didnât even compile. I tried writing unit tests for them and said these must pass before you can send me the jar. I found code in the jar that was an attempt to bypass the unit tests, but that also didnât compile. They pushed back for a while but when I insisted on the tests passing they ended up writing a bunch of Java that wasnât part of the jar they sent and ran the unit tests against that. Iâll give you one guess as to whether they wrote the code specifically to the tests so the method was empty aside from a return that was only what the test was asking for. It was the biggest pain in the ass. I feel like our experiences are much more common that they should be. I, too, feel your pain.
A shit coder will cost $20/hr and take 6 hours. A good coder will cost $60/hr and take <1 hour. But of course, to a bean counter the good coder costs 3x as much, since all they can count is lines of code.
It's funny, even penny pinchers go with the second to lowest bidder. Lowest bidder always cutting corners somewhere or outright lying to secure the contract.
I hate the world, just live to watch everything get shitty
It's the Enshittification of Everything ^tm
They'll claim they had no way of knowing. Such bs.
It's what the free market demands
If only. In truth itâs what the executives demand
More evidence that, as a company expands, it inherently corrupts itself in the interest of unfettered capitalism. There's no control on it, so it becomes pure greed over time. As the years go on, we see more companies going this way. All in the interest of shareholders getting more fat stacks of cash and no care about anything else. In the end, they will jump ship as soon as it is profitable to do so and the company will be left a husk that collapses in on itself. Compromising integrity for share price is pure short term greed.
I think itâs true for public. I havenât seen this in private companies
That's correct, because they don't have to chase a rising stock price to appease shareholders.
The company may or not get fined but i guarantee that fuck all will happen to the execs responsible. I hate it here.
"Actually, I'm being promoted!" - worker who purchased the titanium
And then gets in legal trouble because his signature is on the paper saying it isn't counterfeit. At least for Airbus
Of course, they saved the company a lot of money and made their superiors look good. When performance reviews come around that will earn them their raise
I mean, business is slowing, isn't it?
Does that really matter when you have a decade worth of orders in your backlog?
It'd be unfortunate if something were to happen to those orders
Oh no, means they'll have to jump ship and waft on golden parachutes to the next company they're gonna run into the ground. Or they could just retire with their millions of dollars.
Dangoo titanium on Amazon is having a sell
DANGOO Titanium Left wing Fastening bolts PACK OF 50 ultra high Quality bolt set for Boeing Airbus Embraer certified to 1000000 psi LEAD FREE organizer case With purchase
Let's add the phrase that every item on Amazon seems to have now: "For indoor or outdoor use."
what about i wanna use it on the veranda joey
And half the positive reviews are for pet collars or whatever else that listing used to be for.
With an included card pleading for a 5-star review, for which you'll get a free gift in return once they verify the review is sufficiently adulatory.
There is a DFAR requirement that states preference for domestic specialty metals. I cannot recall if titanium is considered a specialty metal or not (Iâve been out of aerospace manufacturing for a while). Boeing used to go hard on us for AlNiCo magnets, despite them falling under an exception to that requirement. Boeing is typically very stringent with their supply chain when they buy assemblies, but it seems their own direct purchasing processes are more lenient.
I don't want a fine I want executives in prison.
Why not both?
> I want executives in prison Fortunately for them, it was all Bob from shipping and receiving's fault!
I am shocked Boeing got away with this as THE aircraft manufacturer in the US. I worked in aircraft procurement for an airline and the paper trails were onerous for everything that I bought. Multiple times, I ended up having to buy 10 cent bolts for $100 each just because of documentation issues. The FAA is very strict on this stuff
That's what happens when they hire board members from the most toxic US company, they hired [2 bottom line fucking blood suckers from GE](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/business/general-electric-split-explained/index.html) who managed to run GE into the ground. They poison every company they touch, and boeing took them and now we are here.
I worked in aerospace manufacturing (seats) and yeah, the paper trail required was insane. We once had to throw out a large quantity of fiberglass prepreg because our freezer temperature logging setup failed and we couldn't adequately prove that it had stayed below a certain threshold. And that was for *non-structural* seat components.
It's simple. https://simpleflying.com/faa-some-airbus-boeing-jets-counterfeit-titanium-falsified-certification/ The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier. > "Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records. Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records." > The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier that sold titanium to Turkish company Turkish Aerospace Industries in 2019. Documentation from this Chinese supplier claimed that the titanium had been sourced from another Chinese firm, **Baoji Titanium Industry** - however, **Baoji Titanium** has confirmed that it did not provide this batch of titanium ***"and has no business dealing with this company."*** And from the inspectors at Spirit AeroSystems: > "This is about titanium that has entered the supply system via documents that have been counterfeited. When this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production."
This is literally the plot of Airframe by Michael Crichton.
Great, underrated book.
On the other side, it's China, they're known for showing you samples that wil have nothing to do with what you're going to *buy* from them. For example, medicine. They don't care about safety etc, they were going to send your counterfeit from the beginning. [Chinaâs counterfeit medicine trade booming - PMC (nih.gov)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774384/) There's a reason why Chinese people fly expecially to Japan to buy medicine, diapers etc. They KNOW they can't trust their own country with what they are pretending they're selling you.
Fun fact, Japans got the best endoscopists and anything that hits their med tech market (and any new procedures developed) hits the West 10 years later. So everyone should be going to Japan for medicine.Â
A lot of biomedical engineering stuff is this way too. All Japan does is makes sure it's safe/won't kill people and they'll let it rip to see if it actually works.
the article you linked is 15 years old. do you think apple has issues with counterfeits from OEMs in china? you get what you pay for.
You mean they bought the parts off Amazon?
Because no oneâs actually checking and itâs cheaper. On the rare occasions they do check itâs better for profits to beg for forgiveness than purchase domestically produced materials that cost more.
I will say, for how inflated our military budget is, the cost of jets is so expensive because they pay for receipt confirmation and sourcing for every single aspect of every single pieces of all of those planes. If they get a faulty screw anywhere, theyâve paid to have a clear and apparent paper trail back to exactly who messed up
Yep, dunno who downvoted you but I worked with a military supplier. Every single fucking component had complete auditing and certification trails no matter how small the part. It was hilarious that bags of screws also had expiration dates too lol. It was like 20 years (the max) but that also applies, everything needs a lot and expiration date even if itâs impossible for it to expire
And yet⌠https://lawyerinc.com/biggest-northrop-grumman-lawsuits-in-company-history/ The cost of things isnât as expensive because of the cost of compliance. The cost is high because of the rampant fraud, waste, abuse, and the captive audience of the U.S. government who is always willing to pay for something - and a very limited âbig playerâ pool of companies (Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, etc). These companies use to âbet the farmâ and invest their own cash to develop quality products in hopes the government would order 5,000 of them. Now the government foots the bill for research, development, testing, errors and corrections, corporate overhead, CEO salaries, share buybacks and dividends, etc. These company offer no real innovation or independence from the government RFPs. They are just the state captured industries people who complain about communism talk about but donât realize they already exist. Itâs welfare for retired military folks.
Seeing how the government is paying for everything, why don't they absorb these companies?
I mean planes fly in china... So its not like there isn't *cheap* sources, they just wanted *cheaper*.
You can buy anything in China. You can get extremely high quality parts there. You can also get garbage pop can metal shit there. It all depends on what youâre willing to payâŚ..and companies outsourcing to China are typically wanting to pay very little, hence everyone thinking China only makes shit tier stuff.
This is true for most industrialized countries, even the US. You can get some real shitty Made in the USA stuff, and some really good stuff, too.
People tend to forget that most of the high end electronics are also made in China. Often at the same factories. It's just that some companies pay for higher quality materials and testing standards and others don't. And then often the factory "borrows" the design and makes their own version to whatever specs they want as well.
It was cheaper. You're welcome.
Its FAR FAR FAR more complex than this since a plane fell out of the sky in the 90s due to FAKE TITANIUM PARTS. We even found them on air force one.. we discovered that 90% of all parts brokers, sold fake parts. Most the time it doesnt matter, to be honest, unless its structural. The wrong screws on a bathroom door wont kill you. The wrong ones on the rudders will. SInce the 90s we thought this was mostly fixed, checks showed a massive drop in counterfeit. AND NOW THEY ARE BACK. of course they are cheaper, thats why people buy counterfeit anything. the point is we mostly solved this problem and its back.
It's also about at which level in the supply chain the counterfeiting is known. Are Beoing and Airbus knowingly buying lower cost parts with a higher risk of counterfeit? Are the parts manufacturers knowingly buying counterfeit titanium? Are the materials manufacturers knowingly selling counterfeit titanium? Airbus and Boeing should both be testing their parts more thoroughly, but the fact that it's both makes me feel like the actual counterfeiting is happening at a level higher than either jet manufacturer.
A non-paywalled article in the aviation subreddit discussed the titanium was found at Spirit who makes fuselage and wing components for the 737, 787, and A220. Once the counterfeits were discovered it was reported to the FAA by Boeing and the investigation began.
Also note that the A220 is not a âstandardâ Airbus but a re-branded bombardier plane thatâs made in a joint venture. One of the things about it is that itâs partly made in the US which makes more sense in that it uses the same supplier.
The A220 wing in question is made in the UK. The A220 has final assembly lines in Canada and the USA.
Thanks for that. I didn't see that in /r/aviation .
Wait so this Spirit Aerosystems is different than Spirit Airlines? And they both suck and have earned up a reputation for terrible reliability? The probability of confusion, your honor ...
> Wait so this Spirit Aerosystems is different than Spirit Airlines? Yes they are different.
> Spirit who makes fuselage and wing components for the 737, 787, and A220 They make it for the A350 as well. Airbus most production by Spirit AeroSystems for them is in the US still, Ireland only is an extension that does wings for A220, A350 is all US. Scotland does mostly Airbus but isn't as big. [Spirit AeroSystems does more than just A220, they also do fuselage/wings for A350](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems). > Spirit also produces parts for Airbus, including fuselage sections and front wing spars for the A350 and the wings for the A220 > Spirit also manufactures major fuselage and/or wing sub-assemblies for current Airbus jetliners, mostly in its Tulsa, Oklahoma factory They make fuselage's for the A350 at the same plants as they do for Boeing 737 + 787. The A220 plant was added for additional production of wings for that plane but most work for Airbus by Spirit Aerosystems is in the US in same production facilities. > On October 31, 2019, Spirit acquired Bombardier Aviation's aerostructures activities and aftermarket services operations in Northern Ireland (Short Brothers) and Morocco, and its aerostructures maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in Dallas, with the acquisition completing a year later in October 2020. The deal gives Spirit a bigger place in Airbus' supply chain, in particular with the wings for the Airbus A220 that are produced in the Belfast plant Spirit AeroSystems about a fifth of the production is for Airbus. The point is they are a third party supplier where this happened and issues have happened on quality to both manufacturers. Boeing had more demand from them. Boeing spun them out in early 2000s and they have a considerable business with Airbus as well. Boeing will probably bring them back under Boeing to get quality under control and this will hit Airbus production as well. > In March 2024, Boeing started talks to acquire Spirit AeroSystems. The talks came after years of losses and quality control problems at Spirit. Both Boeing and Spirit faced intense scrutiny after an uncontrolled decompression on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, that was occurred when a door plug (a structure installed to replace an optional emergency exit door) on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, which was not bolted in place due to a manufacturing error, blew out. In a statement, Boeing said, âWe believe that the reintegration of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystemsâ manufacturing operations would further strengthen aviation safety, improve quality and serve the interests of our customers, employees, and shareholders.â Airbus is trying to buy the Ireland production but they may not get it. So Boeing will be suppling wings there and fuselage/wings in the US to Airbus should they bring it back under Boeing at the Tulsa, Ireland and Scotland plant. [Airbus has explored buying Spirit A220 wings plant, sources say](https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/airbus-has-explored-buying-spirit-a220-wings-plant-sources-2024-03-01/) [All of Spirit Aerosystems facilities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems#Manufacturing_facilities). The Ireland and Scotland plants are additional capacity for A220 but not the main place for Airbus work by Spirit Aerospace, they are specialized capacity/fulfillment arms.
It would be a bit of ridiculous bar to ask companies to verify the materials of their parts when those parts arenât produced in house. It should be a reasonable expectation that you get what you pay for. I AM shocked that suppliers producing parts for the aviation industry arenât subject to regular thorough governmental and competitor audits.
This is why material audits are important. Anytime I worked with aerospace they needed a shit ton of samples of material to go with the parts. Not sure what happened here tbh. Every part could be then compared back to the samples and it should be 1:1 if theyâre from the same batch. I think this is obviously from people cheaping out on quality assurance. Someone signed off on these somewhere or lots of people did. Hold them accountable.
I'm a little alarmed by how vague the disclosure is on details. Someone is holding back information to CYA. I work in manufacturing, and I will say that when we procure a raw material, it undergoes thorough QA testing to ensure it meets spec before it goes anywhere near production. Why these aviation companies aren't doing the same thing is inexcusable. Because saving a penny per screw is nothing compared to human lives lost.
I also work in manufacturing, and it isn't a surprise when parts from international suppliers are of the wrong materials. Dare I mention China? While the components I make are not consumer facing, the wrong materials still put my own life and other in danger and can result in millions of dollars of lost revenue because the wrong materials can break damn expensive equipment. When some of this equipment breaks....Ive seen it...molten metal is flying through the air. It also produces a 140 dB boom. Not good in the confined space of a factory.
> It also produces a 140 dB boom. Not good in the confined space of a factory. I used to work in a factory that made propane tanks. The weld line stamped them out of rolls of steel, welded the parts together, and tested the welds under high pressure in steel tanks. I was on the paint line on the other side of the building, but you could hear the BOOM through the whole factory when a weld failed. We called them 'bombs', and whenever one went off, everybody at the facility would let rip a 'WHOOOOO!' that would make Ric Flair proud. I almost miss that job.
Basically every material purchased that goes on an aircraft has to has certifications with it that follow it throughout the entire supply chain. There are audits, but generally everyone trusts that the certs are accurate. If the certs are being falsified thats criminal fraud.
> It would be a bit of ridiculous bar to ask companies to verify the materials of their parts when those parts arenât produced in house. This may seem ridiculous to you, but in some industries--such as the food and medicine industries--this is the case. No manufacturer of those types of products is going to use them until they are verified. Tested for microbes, contaminants, and of course verifying that it is what it is claimed to be. Because it comes down to this: If someone dies using your product, it's going to be viewed by everyone as *your* fault, regardless of who's responsible for the faulty component.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers extensively test raw materials before use. Rather than auditing 100s of raw material suppliers, auditing the manufacturer and ensuring they have adequate internal quality control is an easier solution.
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I work in Materials Management for a small manufacturer and we have to have material certs and traceability for everything. Not only that but all major OEMs that fall under Automotive and Aerospace are certainly requiring their supply base to be audited and certified (ISO/IATF/AS, etc.). The only way this shit happens is if players are knowingly lying for the sake of profit and they will certainly have an easily tracked paper trail with signatures.
The titanium company (out of China) was providing falsified paperwork. If there's a paper trail I doubt the People's Republic will be eager to help investigators run it down.
the thing is if they don't there might be consecuences like banning parts from China...
If companies in China commonly do this, why aren't US manufacturers required to verify the nature and quality of the supplies they purchase from China?
They are. Someone domestic fucked up.
Because they do *ish*. The due diligence test samples and site audits always check out. Everyone always ignores that once there's an approved vendor, the vendor just produces fake paperwork with jank smelt standards until the next scheduled audit. In other sectors, you can buy 10 steel castings for the price of one and get it faster out of India or China. If one is good, and you can weld repair sand voids in 3, you're ahead of the game. If you audit their QA and let them do the entire manufacturing when they pass? Well, now you're 10/10 for 1/5 the cost, and everyone has paperwork in order so nobody saw it coming when it's all faked testing.
Yeah but there are still spot checks, xray material checks, or other signs that are fairly unobtrusive and affordable that can be done mid process once manufactured
They may in a situation like this. Not helping would look bad, and be an indirect risk to Chinese citizens (a lot of whom will be on planes using those counterfeit parts). Given the significant chance that the company in question will have been scamming others, potentially *including* companies the CCP likes, this is the perfect case for them to slam down hard and look like good global citizens and to trumpet as part of their own anti-corruption efforts.
Bullshit. Those certs can be faked with damn photoshop and have been before. There was a story like 3 years ago about a weld house faking all their certs. How often do you want to do audits to guarantee to all of us that 0% fraud gets through?
Then OEMs aren't doing their due diligence. My parts have normal frequency requirements for independent destructive testing. Even if I forged cert/origination documents, I would never pass 3rd party testing.
Link to incident in the 90s please?
[Partnair Flight 394](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnair_Flight_394) is the case that caused a huge investigation of maintenance/parts sourcing practices. [Docudrama episode of it from Mayday, a TV series that investigates air-related disasters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFd71FaL98)
Curious that the Suspected Unapproved Parts (SUP) program was cancelled in 2007 and now all of these issues are happening again
Wonder which politicians during that year took money from these companies to cancel said program. Follow the money.
The solution is less regulations - clearly.
This scam goes back really far in history. I remember coffin ships in the British Navy. They were supposed to use copper bolts to hold the hull together because it did not corrode, but instead they would use an iron bolt, with a copper cover. And the ship's would just sink with all hands without warning. Crazy that they do not think that people will be greedy and do this kind of thing. It should be punishable with extreme severity.
So.. he was right. Itâs because itâs cheaper. Lol
*CEO salivating thinking about all those extra profits*
Not the CEO, always the purchaser. I've seen a couple of companies go out of business because purchasers have substituted sub-standard parts.
Because executives pressure employees to make shortsighted decisions like this. With all of Boeings management problems, how the hell can you not see this is a top down problem?
100% for sure. If your company goals are cheap materials in, expensive stuff out, and you incentivise purchasing to get the best deal through performance metrics it won't end well. My company just changed their metrics to stop purchasing from tying up capital in material that we won't use for 6 months because it was "a good deal".
Well, for starters this was Spirit AeroSystems that was purchasing this titanium, not Boeing, so Boeing's management problems had absolutely nothing to do with it. The only ties Boeing had to it at all is they were buying parts from Spirit that included the titanium (as was Airbus).
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And some of them even get kickbacks from sketchy vendors. âHey, so nice to meet you. Oh, you like surfing? Well I have this lovely beach house you could use for a couple weeks this summer. Absolutely no problem at all. Sure thing, the code to the door is in this envelope which may or may not have $20,000 in it. Also, howâs that RFQ coming? Have our two competitors provided quotes yet? They have? HmmâŚwe were thinking maybe somewhere around $30/unit, but we may have some flexibility- oh, $28 already came in from one, huh? Hmm. Okay well, youâll have our quote tomorrow morning for sure. Have fun at the beach house! No problem at all!â Then the next morning the quote comes in at $26.75 and the new vendor gets the business. And the purchaser hits their KPI.
Yeah, i wouldnt let him off the hook so easily. Someone has to approve those purchases
In a roundabout way, you're probably right, but they would've purchased standardized grade metal alloys and paid appropriately. It was probably not cheaper for Boeing but for the supplier. What likely happened is that QA was gutted and didn't have the resources to test, so they either replied on supplier test reports or specific samples sent for testing and so it didn't get caught. If you want to scare yourself, look in to counterfeit steel in the construction industry and remember that about half the bridges in the US are older than their lifespan.
This makes the most sense.
People don't understand that corporations scam other corporations just as hard as they scam ordinary people. The company I work at has been fed so much bullshit about wonder materials and next-gen processes by our suppliers and it's very rarely not a deliberate lie.
Lol gottem... Seriously though, there's a lot more to this. Every part on commercial ~~aircraft~~ airframe is traced from the time the ingot is forged until final installation. I used to work for a shop that made aircraft parts and the ingots come in first hand. Each one is etched with identifiable information which is confirmed before being used and then updated as it's machined. Each step in the process is meticulously documented. You can take a part of any modern aircraft, grab the serial number and trace every single thing that's ever happened to that part up to and including what the temperature and humidity was like that day. The issue here isn't that counterfeit metal was used. It's that this traceability process failed somehow. The top concern would be some sort of espionage.
Same thing in the nuclear industry. Granted, there are different levels of QA/QC traceability dependent upon the classification of the part in relation to its function in nuclear safety. I imagine the aircraft industry would follow this model. My guess in this case is that âcounterfeitâ would most likely be a part with questionable traceability. It probably is even materially identical to what is prescribed, just without the much more expensive QA/QC paper trail that follows a part from being dug out of the ground to installation.
There are extensive checks and balances in aviation products to ensure no bogus parts are fitted to aircraft. How all the saftey nets were unable to catch this is what the investigation would be about, not the motivation behind it, which is obvious
Theyâre investigating the how, not the why. The how is probably more like because QA oversight didnât do enough spot testing and Iâm sure the supplier used falsified performance testing documents.
These dudes went OceanGate on their own damned planesâŚ.
I used to work in distribution and we sold to the mil/aero community and this is a huge issue still. There are a number of shady âgrayâ market vendors that resell products from suppliers that they arenât franchised for. Typically these gray market vendors buy overstock, parts that didnât make QC requirements and used stock thatâs refurbished. Some of these vendors donât disclose these facts and donât supply paperwork or forged paperwork. We used to use suppliers like that but stopped once we got a shipment of counterfeit switches that almost made it to a large govt contractor. We would have lost tens of millions in sales a year if they hadnât been found and intercepted before hitting the customers dock (we literally drove there before UPS delivered and took the shipment back). We also spearheaded a new QC standard that was for military/aero customers that had extensive documentation about every detail of the company and where the parts came from before weâd use them again and 90% couldnât supply the relevant paperwork. Let me tell you, it was super fun explaining this to the Adjutant General of the Army.
I worked for a company that did products for military/aero, not a base level supplier like you but finished products. I still have dreams about doing the paperwork for our 100% American made (minus the milled aluminum case) product, I can't imagine trying to do that paperwork when you don't know the exact origin.
Paperwork for Space rated parts for satellites still gives me nightmares. Lol
Oh man, one of our customers was trying to put one of our devices onto a satellite once, we thought "cool! That's gonna be a cool thing to brag about." He sent us that paperwork, we took one look at it and said, "nah, our shit isn't going to space."
Canât blame you one bit!
People say the government is 'inefficient', but in my experience, the government insists on a higher standard and insists on constant proof that the standard is being met. Of course those costs are going to be higher than a private company that will fuck over their customers to make more money.
There are certainly some inefficient aspects to government, but bureaucracy is generally a reliable way to ensure processes go smoothly.
Having to go through the task of tracking material issues on aircraft is a nightmare. A few years back, our main aluminum supplier contacted us to let us know that they had discovered bad temperature sensors in their heat treatment equipment. They basically had to invalidate all of the 2024 they had sent us since the previous replacement, which was about 6 months. In that time, we had installed hundreds of after-market parts and STC packages. We had to go through all of our records to figure out the specific batches of material that were used for each detail part that was installed, and then check our stress analysis to see if the worse aluminum could still handle the loads (and then send out emergency replacement kits anywhere it didn't). That process took us a full year, and some aircraft were grounded for half of that (any planes we still had on hand were fixed on site). For a small company that only does a couple of aircraft per month in a limited scale, even a 6 month slip was awful. I can't imagine what it does at OEM scale.
On the positive side, I bet that supplier is now calibrating their temperature sensors far more often.
We've secretly replaced the titanium in these critical aerospace parts with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if anyone will notice.
Subcontractor, Iâm sure
It was. That's how it ended up in both Boeing and Airbus. And the titanium had certificates of conformity saying it game from a known and major supplier of titanium but those certificates were fake. By the time it got to even got to Spirit Aerosystems it was already built into subassemblies (parts). There's a lot of evidence to think it is real titanium and maybe even the same alloy, but the parts don't pass all the quality tests so the way the material was worked/subassemblies produced seems like it cannot be right. The problem was initially found because the parts had a different appearance than usual. That started the investigation.
Highlights why itâs so important to empower line employees to speak up when something is off about the processes they live in every day, and managers to actually pay attention and elevate these concerns.
Toyota has such a policy.
Iâm basically parroting that policy - itâs something that a lot of manufacturers have adopted, sometimes whole-cloth from Toyota. To the point where all the same nomenclature is used, like Gemba Walks.
we have found conduit from a foreign supplier mixed in with US supplied materials, it was easy to spot because of the different shades of gray
Found the one person in this whole thread who actually read the article! There are probably hundreds of people just in this thread who have no problem taking the time to post their opinions but arenât willing to take the time to read a few paragraphs of facts. The result is all these posts with wildly inaccurate statements. I honestly donât understand it. If any sociologists are reading this, this deserves to be studied. Is this some kind of modern functional illiteracy? I can technically read but I refuse to. But Iâll still share opinions with people about the things I didnât read while pretending Iâm informed. Or maybe itâs that I donât want to read facts, because reasons, but I do want to read the opinions of strangers, and then parrot those opinions as my own?
HAECO is one of the "world's leading" aircraft maintenance companies. China owned. I'd start my search there.
But I just checked amazon and there's FLYOO, GOUWUP, and CMEFLI brands there too. Damn counterfeits.
GOUWUP sure makes a good office chair too. /s
My screen protector brand was PUCCY
At least you're less likely to drop it, since you can grab it by the PUCCY.
I went camping and brought my RVKRVKS fire starters. My mouth hurts from the pronunciation.
Itâs British owned.
HAECO has been a British owned company since its founding in British owned Hong Kong and is has been owned by a British holding company since 1975 and the only things that they do that happen in China is MRO. Their seating is manufactured entirely in the U.S. since they just rebranded an American seating manufacturer. What are you on about lol.
What's the point of anything if we don't blame China at some point?
> *"Counterfeit Titanium"* Now that's a term I never thought I would hear.
Okay okay enough with the cheap jabs at Boeing, folks; Airbus also got this issue, so you may get a fuselage with pinholes on a Boeing or wings with the same on an Airbus. I just hope whoever falsified the certifications gets held accountable with real consequences for putting so many lives in danger.
Is Russia still one of the biggest producers of titanium? If that's the case, I can see them wanting to get back at what we did to them during the Cold War when we smuggled out tons and tons of titanium through CIA front companies and llc's for the SR-71 Blackbird program that was explicitly used to spy on Russians.
20 years ago there was a big kerfuffle with contaminated Russian titanium getting into aircraft parts. Apparently they decommissioned some old submarines for scrap/recycling. As I recall, the issue was the hatches (titanium) were mounted on hinges made from some sort of tungsten alloy. Rather than disassembling them, the just cut the hinges. When the hatches got melted down so did the tungsten hinge half, contaminating the batch. They had to track where all the material went, what parts got made out of it, and replace the contaminated parts as necessary. It was quite a mess.
I notice that I am confused. Tungsten melts at 3422°C compared to titanium's 1668°C. If you melt the titanium, any tungsten (which is almost 5x as dense as titanium) should sink to the bottom as a solid, right?
youre right, but it still causes contamination
Russia was third, behind China and Japan. China exports a little bit more than half of the total world supply of titanium sponge. For reference, Ukraine was the 6th largest exporter.
I think china is also is the leading supplier of carbide
Counterfeit from a small Chinese company. What a shocker.
Wut. I used to be in heavy manufacturing and we'd do regular material sampling and testing several times a shift to guarantee performance and quality. How do you *not* do that if you're building fucking airplanes.
Know an electrical engineer terminated from Boeing for pointing out how noise from a cheaper part would impact the performance of other components in the satellite being built. The cheap part had been offered as a cost savings by a younger "hot shot" trying to outdo the older, experienced engineers in QC. That's how counterfeit parts end up in mission-critical products. Not surprised.
Because they put shareholders buybacks as priority over safety and common sense.. they saw what they could get away with and it backfired.  Not surprising at all....there's going to be a 100 stories a year for the next decade...just like this.  Who knew the bottom was at the bottom line
Because you fired all of the engineers!
Go for the lowest bidder, get chinesium
lol I'm conjuring the mental image of a Harbor Freight for airplanes.
The equivalent of buying a "Gucci" bag from some random dude under a bridge in NYC for $50 and then being upset when you find out it's not genuine...
*ThE mArKeT wILl ReGuLaTe ItSeLf.*
They bought it from Temu
I know it started as a meme but are we seriously looking at possibly every plane made by one of the largest producers in the world might have to be grounded and inspected? What happens if a lot or most of their planes are made with counterfeit materials? I'm almost always in the people over react and need to calm down camp. But like. This is actually starting to affect my confidence in flying any plane made by Boeing and while we are at it. What makes all the other multibillion dollar "we have so much money regulations dont matter" plane makers from doing the same shit? This is actually making me not want to fly even though I know how safe it is stastically.
I feel like the FAA is asleep at the wheel as well
There's a book by Michael Creighton (jurassic park writer among other things) called Airframe. Read it many many years ago. Really cool book. Creepy how accurate it felt at the time and every time something happens to an aircraft.
Wasn't this the plot of a Michael Crichton book?
None of this is going to matter until doing the wrong thing becomes less profitable than the right thing.,
Boeing knew. The dead whistleblowers knew. They just have low sales so they needed to deflect.
We've all seen Ozark, we know where it came from.
Whoever discovered and reported the issue should be placed on 24x7 suicide watch. Can't be too careful with Boeing employees.
This issue was reported by spirt and boeing so I wonder who should Boeing shoot in this case Mr conspiracy theorist?
Ordered their raw titanium from Temu
A ceo who only looks at numbers said âhey, I can increase profits!â
Without reading the article I thought this will be some Chinese supplier. Then I thought, no that's racist, I better read the article until I find the source. Well I was right.
The shareholders need to take a much bigger hit. They demand stock buybacks, personnel cuts, irrationally high profits, they need to pay for their gamble. The government needs to fine them half their stock value, taking that value in newly issued shares. Appoint a careful person to vote using those shares. Boeing is essentially underwritten by the US government, it should come with strings, lots of them.
It's simple. https://simpleflying.com/faa-some-airbus-boeing-jets-counterfeit-titanium-falsified-certification/ The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier. > "Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records. Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records." > The problem has been traced back to a Chinese supplier that sold titanium to Turkish company Turkish Aerospace Industries in 2019. Documentation from this Chinese supplier claimed that the titanium had been sourced from another Chinese firm, **Baoji Titanium Industry** - however, **Baoji Titanium** has confirmed that it did not provide this batch of titanium ***"and has no business dealing with this company."*** And from the inspectors at Spirit AeroSystems: > "This is about titanium that has entered the supply system via documents that have been counterfeited. When this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production."
Tofu dreg airplanes
Couldnât they just ask the FAA inspectors at Boeing plant who also get paid through Boeing why things werenât caught and reported sooner?
You can counterfeit Titanium?
You can ship a material with a certification sheet that does not actually represent the material. Maybe the requirements are that it has 1% vanadium and that's what the certification says it has, but it actually has 2% vanadium because it's cheaper (I don't know if these numbers make sense, they're just to get the point across).
So not titanium, forged/fake material certificates I'm assuming
Iâve come to learn that the people regulating and enforcing laws are absolute bell ends.
Greed. I'm sure this can all be traced back to greed.
Was told by a former production manager that most of the titanium comes from Russia so there's that
That is simply what happens when you replace engineers with MBAs.
The FAA didn't want to hire me as a metallurgist to take X-ray spectroscopy readings of the metals because sneaking counterfeit parts in is an inside job and disparaging veterans is a national priority.
TIL counterfeit titanium is a thing.
This is also what a culture of low taxes gets you. Taxing profit is important because it dis incentivizes humongous profits. When do you have 40-50% taxes on profits all of a sudden it makes sense to pay your workers well it makes sense to invest in good materials because at least youâre not paying taxes on that itâs going into the business but when you donât pay taxes, when corporations pay an effective zero % tax rate, of course theyâre going to squeeze every last penny out because they get to keep all the pennies.
I would never have the skills to be an exec, I would take too long thinking âmaybe thereâs a reason this titanium is **significantly** cheaper than the competitionâ leading me to hesitate and miss out on those amazing deals.
How the fuck do you counterfeit titanium?
We need to crackdown on counterfeit everything. Thank you FAA
EA NASIR MOMENT
I don't even have to read this to know the answer is China.
Did Trump or Biden whistleblow against Boeing and now Boeing is trying to murder them like they regularly murder their whistleblowing employees? FREAKIN AIR FORCE ONE could have broken apart mid-air!