Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation

long story short:

1. boeing and spirit both work on planes

2. damaged rivets discovered and lots of back and forth to get them repaired. boeing does the doors and spirit does the rivets.

3. rework on rivets needed door plug to be removed, someone at boeing (who is not onsite) sees that the door plug needs to be removed, escalates this request but notes that work must wait for the next week because the only door person who is qualified to remove plugs is on leave.

4. door manager - on the day of the plug removal - de-escalates the door plug removal request. later that day the door manager, door master and three door crew enter area near the fuselage & door plug - correct documentation of removal not generated and none of them were trained to remove door plug. No one knows who removed the plug.

5. a boeing technician moves a stand that has what he believed to be a door plug bolt on top of it. he "strapped it and let it hang" to the fuselage.

6. Spirit indicates plug was removed and reworks rivets

7. No one checks the door plug was reinstalled correctly

Also, Boeing spun off Spirit in 2005 to juice its own profit margins, so the poor coordination between these two entities is ultimately Boeing's poor judgment. And more specifically that of Harry Stonecipher, perhaps the worst American CEO this side of Jack Welch.