A wheel fell to the ground from a United Airlines flight that was taking off from San Francisco International earlier today and damaged some vehicles in a parking lot below.

The aircraft's destination was Osaka, but it diverted and landed safely at Los Angles International.

I just just don't get it. Over my 45 year career supplying to the defence and aerospace primes, no one- not Raytheon, Lockheed, Harris, L3 seemed to have a tighter quality system than Boeing. Nothing was ever left to chance; you better have your sh*t together sitting across the table from those guys. Makes you wonder...

One huge center nut is all that holds the wheels on. If I remember, it has set bolts to lock it in place while others use a huge cotter style pin. I guess someone forgot to tighten everything.

[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 03-07-2024).]

The quality at Boeing seems to be lacking- they are having a lot of problems....

I worked at Naval Air Rework Facility Alameda from 1983 to 1997...hated the job for the first 8 years....Then we were taught "TQM" (Total Quality Management)...That is the quality control system that an AMERICAN (Edward Deming) taught the Japanese back in the 50s and 60s....The Fiero is the first American car to use the system...

The basic idea is that you want NEGATIVE feedback from your workers and also your customers- you basically look at your workers as your "Eyes and ears" on the line. Before TQM, our bosses would just yell at us- never listen about any problems. After, we would have a shop meeting every Thursday- our boss would tell us some stuff- and then ask if we had anything we noticed on the line. (And NO- we did not go outside and exercise together)

NARF Alameda was the first aircraft line to produce a ZERO-Defect aircraft- and we then produced 13 in a row- each of the next three years...(Of course, they then closed the base (But that may have been because I bought a house)

Example of TQM system; My Fiero's heater fan went Intermittent for a week- I called the dealer and they ordered a new one...a week later the fan started working OK- I called the dealer and told them- But they WANTED that bad fan motor so they could examine it and improve production.

You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel