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Past President Steve Day presided over the in-person meeting at Hillel UCLA. He reminded us of the 2024/2025 Rotary theme this year is the “Magic of Rotary”.
Steve thanked Janet Schwartz for greeting everyone today.
Past President Peter More led the pledge.
Past President Michael Newman shared the thoughts from past managers of the Dodgers baseball teams.
Past President Ed Gault led the singing of the “The Air Force Song”.
Guests included Ethan Kim, a financial planner who recently graduated from UCLA, lives in Century City and is looking to join the Club.
Past President Steve Day presented the Paul Harris Fellows 7+ and 8+ to Terry White, the Treasurer of the club.
Today’s speaker was Dr Arun Kumar, introduced by Past President Gordon Fell. Dr Kumar received his undergraduate degrees in India in Physics, Chemistry, Math, and Metallurgical Engineering. He earned both a master's and PhD degrees in metallurgy and Metal Processing from UCLA and continued at UCLA as a post-doctoral research fellow. After working at Rockwell performing failure analysis of failed components and structures of the B-1 bomber during R&D and flight testing, he moved on and became a head of a group at Hughes Aircraft responsible for metallurgical failure analysis and related issues. Later, he founded SEAL and EAG Laboratories, managing 15 engineers and technicians performing failure analysis and consulting on metallurgical issues. Dr Kumar has served as an expert witness in product liability trials involving material failures on aircraft.
Dr Kumar shared the analysis of the Alaska Airlines MD-83 crash on January 31, 2000. He was able to go into the details of the crash because all the litigation of the accident was completed. Boeing purchased Mac Donald Douglas, who manufactured the aircraft and specified how the jackscrews in the tail controlling the up and down movement of the plane are to be lubricated and maintained on a scheduled basis. In the case of the accident, it was discovered the jackscrew controlling the up and down movement of the plane got stuck in the down direction, causing the crash into the ocean off of Ana Capa Island. The wear on the jackscrew and surrounding nut were caused by the airline not using the proper lubrication specified by the manufacturer and the airline not following the maintenance schedule specified by the manufacturer. It is interesting and very unfortunate that the FAA did not discover that the airline was not following the manufacturer's recommended lubrication and maintenance schedule, as all the passengers and crew were killed in the accident.
It was an interesting presentation that kept the audience captive. Thank you, Dr. Kumar.
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