It seems that Boeing can’t catch a break. Now it seems they managed to buy fake titanium:
Let me guess, they bought it from China?
That was my first thought, but it doesn’t say. Apparently they bought it via a distributor that falsified records.
Oh, but who knows where they got it from. Going to be an interesting game of “follow the money”
Well, something positive this time:
“Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the F.A.A. regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records,”
And there is a legit distributor of titanium. Only issue is that this distributor knows nothing about this material:
People familiar with the situation said it appeared that an employee at the Chinese company that sold the titanium had forged the details on the certificates, writing that the material came from another Chinese company, Baoji Titanium Industry, a firm that often supplies verified titanium. Baoji Titanium later confirmed that it had not supplied the titanium. The origin of the titanium remains unclear.
In the age of digital signatures, I’m surprised they are using certificates that can be forged. Esp. for critical parts that will go into airplanes.
C’mon, didn’t you even read the article you posted?
Not fake, just with dodgy documentation.
The problem of Counterfeit parts and materials seems to be endemic in the aircraft industry and I wonder what percentage of your holiday boeing or airbus are not what they should be.
No need for alarmism, flying is the safest form of travel bar none, and that includes walking.
Just consider this statistic:
Ryanair (Boeing): founded 1984, carried 1.2 billion passengers, zero fatalities
EasyJet (Airbus): founded 1995, carried 1.1 billion passengers, zero fatalities
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Not doubting that air travel is safe in any way or form. I recall from somewhere that the Zeppelin or airship has the best flight to crash and death ratio of any aircraft.
Every day there over 100,000 flights. Number of daily incidents (on average) <0.005.
A fake handbag is still a handbag.
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But fake titanium is not titanium.
Titanium is used for parts where one wants extreme durability and zero corrosion. It seems problematic if these parts then do corrode.
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Quite so, and tests on these dodgy items have so far not found any that are not actually of the requisite material and quality. It’s all there in the article linked in the very first post, which as I implied, we can only assume that Phil didn’t actually read through.
The article says: “The investigation comes after a parts supplier found small holes in the material from corrosion.” Titanium and titanium alloys hardly corrode, so this suggests that something is off-spec.
It’s a Titanium alloy, not the pure metal, so without knowing the exact metallurgical properties thereof we can’t conclude that corrosion=bad alloy, especially when they explicitly state that all tests have so far failed to find any parts that were not the correct alloy.
So it seems like they ordered Coca Cola but got Pepsi instead…
I didn’t want to make a new thread for this, so I’m tacking on to Phil’s thread. 
The US FAA has ordered inspections of hundreds of 737 MAX jets to check for cracks. No big emergency, apparently. Airlines should simply add this inspection to the usual rotation… 
I am wondering why Boeing itself isn’t mandating checks for carriers around the world. There are probably a few thousand Max that are flying around. Surely Boeing doesn’t want another potential catastrophe on its hands?
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They have. From the AD:
Guidance for accomplishing the actions required by this AD can be found in Boeing Alert Service Bulletin 737-53A1408, dated December 20, 2024, which is referred to in Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 737-53A1408 RB, dated December 20, 2024.