With that out of the way… why did the left hand (LH) mid-exit door plug blow off of the 737-9 registered as N704AL? Simple- as has been covered in a number of articles and videos across aviation channels, there are 4 bolts that prevent the mid-exit door plug from sliding up off of the door stop fittings that take the actual pressurization loads in flight, and these 4 bolts were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane, our own records reflect this.
Although TFA doesn't explicitly say the bolts were there to begin with, the bigger issue is that repairs were required on this door, the repair team lied about what they did, which bypassed a QA check that would have likely caught the missing bolts.
Given the awful (criminal?) behavior of the repair team, it seems reasonable to assume the bolts were initially present and they just forgot to put them back - rather than that they were missing from the start.
I read 'they were never bolted' as 'upon delivery of the aircraft, the bolts holding in the plug were not installed' in order to differentiate from the case of 'the bolts loosened during use of the aircraft after delivery to customer'.
But I can see how we could read to different statements from the parent.
Sure, that's not unbelievable. Tampering with the records is the weird part. I can't think of any reason why spirit or Boeing would be willing to do that when they can just... fix the repair if they knew about it? And if they didn't, then why tamper with the process management systems?
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Although TFA doesn't explicitly say the bolts were there to begin with, the bigger issue is that repairs were required on this door, the repair team lied about what they did, which bypassed a QA check that would have likely caught the missing bolts.
Given the awful (criminal?) behavior of the repair team, it seems reasonable to assume the bolts were initially present and they just forgot to put them back - rather than that they were missing from the start.
Pretty wild because such a delivery would normally include at least one flight.
Did you read the whole thing? Boeing removed the bolts to fix another issue around the door and neglected to reinstall them.
I read 'they were never bolted' as 'upon delivery of the aircraft, the bolts holding in the plug were not installed' in order to differentiate from the case of 'the bolts loosened during use of the aircraft after delivery to customer'.
But I can see how we could read to different statements from the parent.
Sure, that's not unbelievable. Tampering with the records is the weird part. I can't think of any reason why spirit or Boeing would be willing to do that when they can just... fix the repair if they knew about it? And if they didn't, then why tamper with the process management systems?
Spirit removed them, not Boeing.