I noted that for every step forward, something seems to happen to set it back two steps. A Boeing official suggested the piece should have been two steps forward, one step back, but the underlying point is made.
Misdrilled holes for the aft pressure bulkhead are blamed this time. The full extent of the flaw, with impacts, number of planes affected, etc.
Spirit says a supplier is responsible for this issue. This follows a previous setback when Spirit found that one of its suppliers provided parts that failed to meet specifications which attached the vertical tail to the fuselage of the These flaws, revealed within months of each other, negatively impact the delivery of new production s and delivery of some of the more than MAXes that remain in inventory due to the month grounding of the MAX.
Deliveries were suspended for nearly 20 months. Eventually, Boeing had newly built s in inventory that require rework. The fuselages are shipped via rail through Montana among other states. The collapse required Boeing to offload the fuselages from rail cars on the east side of the river and truck them six miles to the west side of the river. There, the fuselages were loaded on another train to complete the trip to Renton. Then there is the continuing geopolitical mess between then US and China.
Boeing had MAXes built for China that remain undelivered. Bloomberg News reported last week the first two of these stored MAXes may be delivered soon.
