Some recently manufactured Boeing and Airbus jets have components made from titanium that was sold using fake documentation. The falsified documents are being investigated by Spirit AeroSystems, which supplies fuselages for Boeing and wings for Airbus, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration. The investigation comes after a parts supplier found small holes in the material from corrosion.
In a statement, the F.A.A. said it was investigating the scope of the problem and trying to determine the short- and long-term safety implications to planes that were made using the parts. It is unclear how many planes have parts made with the questionable material.
The use of potentially fake titanium, which has not been previously reported, threatens to extend the industry’s problems beyond Boeing to Airbus, its European competitor. The planes that included components made with the material were built between 2019 and 2023, among them some Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner airliners as well as Airbus A220 jets.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Some real nonsense posted here. I suggest those who think China can’t produce good metals look up their achievement in home manufactured high speed train wheels. The irony of all this keyboard hate is it’s typed on Chinese made keyboards and computer components. Bahaha.
Both Boeing and Airbus should have detected the bogus titanium LONG before someone saw “rust” (That blew me away) In the end, the buck must stop w/Boeing and Airbus. When it comes to materials whose failure in a product can have deadly consequences, “trust no certificate” ain’t a bad mindset. Outsourcing frequently involves unknown actors. For “life-critical” materials, this is an insane gamble. A certification is paperwork, not verified physical proof. That QC” responsibility falls on Boeing/Airbus
End manufacture quality control must be layered, redundant, and multi-disciplinary Technical physical testing and non-technical. Transparent audit trails of where/whom materials are being sourced. It has to be independently verified. The two companies above, apparently didn’t do that. Very sloppy, scary, and just plain stupid.
Brian’s post doesn’t say anything about the material being from China. Is that mentioned in the NYT article he links to?
Even if the chinese titanium was really fake, sources indicate it was from a LITTLE KNOWN Chinese company.
Let’s translate it: a cheap supplier that Boeing and Airbus knew probably didn´t adhere to the more rigorous standards
LOL, probably anti chinese propaganda. Blame China instead of internal manufacturing problems.
The news comes just as US and Europe are getting ultra protectionist and imposing illegal tariffs, etc, on China.
Of course, WTO and other international organisms were only interesting when it was in their favor.
“the certificates that came with the titanium seemed inauthentic…..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. ”
Half a century of public key cryptography and we’re still dealing with forged paper certificates, and relying on people noticing how they “seem.”
Maybe it’s too hard to keep track of digital certs and make sure they’re not copied and reused. There’s a solution to that. Traceability is going to be one of the most important applications of blockchains, once they scale far enough.
The Chinese language has no words for ethics, honesty, integrity, or virtue.
chinese metals often have insoluble micro-inclusions in them that form stress concentrations that weaken the metal. For that reason you should never source high strength materials from China, Tool steels, Aluminum, Titanium. The alloy will nominally meet alloying spec, but the inclusions only show up on a polished micrograph. Even Chinese won’t use chinese materials bearings etc for critical tasks.
Their first clues were rust spots and all the magnets clinging to the samples.
I feel there are certain things that should never be sourced from China.
And by that, I mean anything.