Summary
Whistleblowers at Boeing allege widespread safety lapses, including missing or defective parts and improper assembly practices, driven by pressure to maintain production schedules.
A January incident where a door panel blew off a new 737-9 Max mid-flight has sparked investigations, with insiders like Sam Mohawk revealing that thousands of faulty parts may have been installed on planes.
Other whistleblowers describe similar concerns over quality control failures, managerial indifference, and retaliation for speaking out.
Boeing denies safety risks but faces ongoing FAA investigations amid heightened scrutiny over its practices.
What you explain sounds totally reasonable. The thing is that older Boeings And DCs and MDs have an American old school philosophy about them, think of the muscle car era, while Airbuses have been conceived different from the start. Even the 300/310 (2nd gen, with the two man cockpit) adopted a computer driven approach, while on the American ones, the computers were simply an auxiliary feature. The result is that certifying such an integral part of the system, based on computer systems is an iffy proposition. I have seen this same issue, with ATMs. While the hardware may be totally sound, getting computer spares has become extremely expensive. Replacing 286 CPUs, for example is really difficult, you can’t really find new ones on the market. Solutions exist but it’s really about economics. These solutions can extend A300’s life, up to 60 years. That’s fairly long.
DC 3’s still fly, but many have been essentially rebuilt, to the last rivet. Apart from the warbirds, the commercial ones are still used because it’s very hard to find modern planes that can replace the DC3’s unique capabilities. Rough landing strips, robustness, easy low tech maintenance, etc. They are expected to be flying into their 100th birthdays.