[HN Gopher] Citing a serious flight test incident, FAA slows Boe...
___________________________________________________________________
Citing a serious flight test incident, FAA slows Boeing 777X
certification
Author : donohoe
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-06-27 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seattletimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seattletimes.com)
| kerng wrote:
| I wonder how much longer it will take Boeing to realize the best
| way forward is to cancel this plane, and start from scratch.
|
| This project will just keep costing them money, continue eroding
| trust and probably more fatalities along the way...
| amelius wrote:
| And the 737MAX too.
| slumdev wrote:
| If it's Boeing, I ain't going!
|
| Hard to believe they wouldn't invest and ensure that their
| software is perfect after the MAX incidents, but here we are.
| plank_time wrote:
| If it's just pilots and peons in the plane during the test
| flights, it will only be about saving money.
|
| They need to put an executive in every one of the test flights
| until it is fully certified. I assure you it will be the safest
| plane you will ever fly.
| alkonaut wrote:
| If Airbus hadn't made a detour with the A380, it would be almost
| comical how much better their product portfolio is now compared
| to Boeing. The A320neo vs the 737MAX and the A350 vs 777 and
| 787... Boeing needs a win, quickly.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The 787 is doing fine. It alone has outsold the A350.
| Glawen wrote:
| 787 is smaller and came sooner than the a350, it fits nicely
| between the a330 and a350. The a350 is competing against the
| 777 I would say.
|
| Boeing better estimated the widebody market than Airbus, but
| they lately have a problem with implementation.
| ju-st wrote:
| Don't forget A220
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The A380 was a good example of getting the prediction of demand
| wrong. It looked good for the gulf carriers, but the US and
| European carriers moved to more direct flights due to consumer
| demand, for which the A380 is the wrong choice.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It appears to be an excellent plane, but it was the Concorde
| of its time. Or the F-35. Too large and complex to build and
| too few customers. The economic downturn and seismic shift in
| demand from hub and spoke as you point out was the nail in
| the coffin. I desperately need to go fly one of the "good
| ones" before they are all converted to 100% economy and then
| retired...
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The biggest irony of the whole affair is, that the
| notorious delayed berlin airport was redesigned and
| rebuilt, to accommodate the A380 and when it was finally
| done, the plane was no longer relevant.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah but the changes needed are not exclusive for the
| A380, but fit the 777 and 350 as well (I think. At least
| the 777 and of course the 747 which is more common)
|
| Most airports came before the A380, you'd change one/two
| gates at most.
| alkonaut wrote:
| 777X gets folding wingtips, is that to fit in gates
| without needing any such changes?
| raverbashing wrote:
| Exactly that.
| coredog64 wrote:
| The original 777 had an option for folding wingtips. ISTR
| American Airlines asked for it so that they could operate
| out of some space constrained airports on domestic
| routes. The engineering was done, the avionics have
| options for folding wingtips, and then nobody ever
| ordered the plane with them.
| 238475235243 wrote:
| Pretty much nobody flies the 747 any more for passenger
| ops.
| ciceryadam wrote:
| Lufthansa does, 747-8s though.
| sephamorr wrote:
| A380 is also quite a fuel-inefficient plane. It optimizes for
| passenger load per aircraft seemingly at the expense of
| everything else.
| LightG wrote:
| A shame the A380 is given a good kicking generally over
| stuff like this ... it's easily my favourite plane in terms
| of flight experience ... I actually started enjoying flying
| again and when booking holidays or work flights, filtering
| flights specifically to make sure I got on the A380.
|
| Hope it's around for many years.
| trollied wrote:
| > The FAA cited a long litany of concerns, including a serious
| flight control incident during a test flight on Dec. 8, 2020,
| when the plane experienced an "uncommanded pitch event" --
| meaning the nose of the aircraft pitched abruptly up or down
| without input from the pilots.
|
| Crikey. MCAS all over again. Something at Boeing is very, very
| out of control.
| vmception wrote:
| My understanding is that they are trying to make planes that
| are too big to actually fly without continual software
| correction
|
| Can they just not do that?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The Antonov An-225 Mriya was designed in 1985. I'm not an
| expert, but I doubt it has any significant computing power on
| board.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
| deergomoo wrote:
| My understanding was that they're trying to use software to
| make their new planes fly like their old planes (at least
| that was the reasoning for MCAS in the 737 MAX). In super
| basic terms, if the new plane doesn't fly like the old plane,
| all the pilots need to be retrained. This is a significant
| expense that could make a serious dent in sales.
|
| I don't think it's anything to do with size, there are larger
| planes than the 777X that are perfectly safe (and of course,
| the 737 is pretty small as far as airliners go).
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Isn't there also some weird requirement that pilots only
| fly one/two airframes at a time? So training for a 777
| means your can't fly 747 or something else anymore?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| The 777 is fly by wire so it wouldn't be a good idea.
| Aperocky wrote:
| What could go wrong if we just fire all the programmers that
| make too much and outsource the software?
| Guest42 wrote:
| It is my understanding that in aerospace much of the software
| is outsourced and is then QAed by internal contractors.
| throwaway713 wrote:
| I suddenly became afraid of flying when I started working for
| one of the companies known for having some of the best
| software engineers in the world and seeing how many bugs made
| it into prod. I can't imagine who is programming the flight
| computers for Boeing and what they're being paid. It's gotten
| bad enough that I refuse to fly on any plane that was
| released in the last decade. At least the older planes have
| some decent trip statistics to back up their safety.
| lawless_c wrote:
| The programmers are just trying to patch what once again is
| likely a hardware problem. If it's like the MAX the real
| issue is the flight characteristics
| landemva wrote:
| Won quoted as, "The technical data required for type
| certification has not reached a point where it appears the
| aircraft type design is mature ..."
|
| The 737MAX should have gone through a new type
| certification, but didn't to allow for less pilot
| retraining.
|
| FAA failed to properly serve the public.
|
| New type cert finds flaws and saves lives.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Basically every modern jet aircraft with relatively large
| engines has some sort of MCAS system. If you raise the nose
| of such a plane the balance does shift. This isn't a form
| of an aerodynamic error, it is a consequence of having
| large engines hanging off your wings (a lot of classic
| airplanes have the engines in or very close to their
| central axis). If you want the appropriate feedback in the
| steering column, you have to compensate for the shift.
| Airbus does it as well.
| dundarious wrote:
| MCAS-like systems exist elsewhere, but MCAS specifically
| is worthy of criticism, as both an engineering failure
| and more importantly IMO a management failure.
|
| Specifically with regard to the flight characteristics,
| MCAS is a band-aid on a problem created by cost-
| minimization -- the desire to avoid a hardware redesign
| (to properly accommodate the larger engines) and/or a re-
| certification.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Of course, the actual implementation of MCAS was a
| disaster. Especially, that they didn't deactivate it
| automatically on AOA disagree, that on top of that the
| screen signal for AOA disagree was not shown due to a
| separate issue and of course that late in development
| MCAS was given more control authority than initially
| planned.
|
| My point just was, a complete redesign of the 737 still
| would have to deal with the same aerodynamic issues as
| the 737 MAX, as they are rather fundamental to this kind
| of jets. But indeed, it would have been easier to deal
| with it with a new design.
|
| It is less mentioned, that shortly after the MAX crashes,
| Airbus mandated that in some planes the last rows were
| kept empty until some software updates were deployed. So
| they seem to have discovered some boundary conditions
| they were not happy with and decided to be rather safe
| till they augmented the software.
| FabHK wrote:
| > late in development MCAS was given more control
| authority than initially planned
|
| ... without triggering re-evaluation of the
| seriousness/consequences of failure. That meant that
| failures of MCAS were considered unproblematic, which
| meant that lower levels of redundancy were deemed
| acceptable.
|
| Quite a process/management failure.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Yes, it's the _aerodynamic lift_ from the big engine fans
| that was the 737 Max issue, according to Aviation Week.
| Fans have gotten bigger as engines have improved and the
| bypass ratios and fuel efficiency has gotten better.
|
| Think of the engines as a big horizontal stabilizer but
| it's at the front, in front of the center of gravity.
| Normally it doesn't do much anything since the angle of
| attack is zero. But if you increase pitch, it will
| increase nose-up momentum.
|
| For some reasons it's not common to put the engines
| further back. DC-9 style, on the sides of the rear
| fuselage might work. Or maybe over the wing and slightly
| to the rear, like Hondajet.
| wyldfire wrote:
| The bonkers thing seemed to me to be having the
| notification and/or override as an opt-in feature you
| could buy. Southwest didn't want to train pilots and
| newly visible behavior requires new training. No surprise
| that airlines elsewhere in the world also skimped on the
| "optional" features to the doom of the passengers and
| crew.
| carl_dr wrote:
| The opt-in feature you mention was for a disagree alert
| for the plane's angle of attack sensors.
|
| But, MCAS was only ever using a single angle of attack
| sensor as its source of truth, so if there was a fault in
| that single sensor, MCAS could activate at normal
| attitudes.
|
| But the real problem was that Boeing hadn't documented
| MCAS, to avoid the requirement for pilots to obtain type
| certification for the MAX (so any existing 737 pilot
| could to fly it without additional training - and it
| wasn't just Southwest objecting to this training), and to
| avoid a full FAA certification process for the MAX.
|
| So on an MCAS activation, even if they had had an AoA
| alert, pilots would not know how to instinctively deal
| with it. (I don't doubt an AOA disagree alert would give
| invaluable information allowing the pilots to rule out
| most failures, which when only a few thousand feet high
| would maybe have saved both planes.)
|
| On the previous day to the Lion 610 crash, the incident
| aircraft suffered an MCAS activation and fortunately a
| pilot in the jump seat realised what was happening and
| what was needed to deactivate it.
|
| It seems being sat behind the trim wheels (so he could
| see they were moving) and not wrestling to keep the plane
| in the sky at the same time was needed for that to
| happen. It must have been terrifying.
| coredog64 wrote:
| 737 trim wheels are very visible and very loud. The noise
| and motion they create have been a joke within the 737
| community for at least 20 years.
| amelius wrote:
| What is the advantage of the engines further from the
| central axis?
| smegcicle wrote:
| iirc that's another term for larger, more efficient
| engines hanging lower from the same wings
| dotancohen wrote:
| Time, money.
|
| They don't need to redesign the wings to accommodate the
| newer, larger engines.
| coredog64 wrote:
| There's only so much room for the landing gear. Larger
| diameter engines require longer landing gear. Increasing
| the space given to landing gear requires changes to the
| wing box. Changes to the wing box is fundamentally a wing
| redesign.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Which is why the A320 is designed to be loaded with
| conveyors. This means it has no problem accommodating an
| even larger nacelle than the 737 in a regular position
| instead of the up and forward the 737 Max resorted to.
| Even the previous generation 737 was running into this
| issue and that's why they went with the distinct oval
| nacelles.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The main driver is the desire to make engines bigger,
| thus more fuel-efficient. The fuel savings of the newest
| engine generations are significant. If you hang engines
| from your wings (I assume that has practical reasons, it
| is easier to hang the engine than include it into the
| wing, it is also easier to maintain), larger engines mean
| engines further from the axis. That applies to all modern
| airplanes which share this configuration. A complete
| redesign of the 737 wouldn't have made this go away
| either. However the goal of keeping the same type rating
| made the especial design of MCAS necessary.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Non-engineer here. What's wrong with taller landing gear
| to provide more clearance?
| hasperdi wrote:
| In 737 case, it means redesign of the landing gear
| system, fuselage modifications, recertification,
| retraining, new support system requirements eg. Higher
| stairs, cargo support equipment etc.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| Taller landing gear makes loading the plane (especially
| with luggage) much harder.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > If it's like the MAX the real issue is the flight
| characteristics
|
| The real issue was the reliance on one sensor coupled with
| too much authority give to MCAS and inadequate failure
| analysis.
|
| And pilots who did not read, remember, or follow the 2 step
| recovery process in the Emergency Airworthiness Directive
| sent to all MAX pilots.
| _ph_ wrote:
| This is really a crucial point. I am a software developer in
| an engineering company. What is essential for my job is not
| only my programming skills, but also a decent understanding
| of the engineering I deal with. This can only be achieved by
| working long enough in the job, be it an engineer who picks
| up programming or a software developer who learns the
| engineering involved.
|
| This is of course much more expensive than picking up any
| contractor, who might be brilliant at programming, but lacks
| the domain knowledge that only grows over time, but it is a
| good way of having more eyes spotting potential spec issues.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I really fail to understand the logic that may make someone
| to think a software engineer, however brilliant, can write
| software for a domain they don't understand.
| slumdev wrote:
| > I really fail to understand the logic that may make
| someone to think a software engineer, however brilliant,
| can write software for a domain they don't understand.
|
| This misunderstanding arises out of necessity to
| compensate for the lack of understanding of the value of
| nontechnical roles.
|
| It's heartbreaking for BAs, POs, PMs, and every other
| flavor of functionary when they realize that, after some*
| years of experience, the programmers understand the
| business just as well as they do. And the programmers
| have countless other invaluable skills that the
| functionary could never understand if he studied for a
| hundred years.
|
| *This length of time is variable. Depending on the
| business domain, it could be anywhere between 1 and 10
| years.
| gumby wrote:
| > It's heartbreaking for BAs, POs, PMs, and every other
| flavor of functionary when they realize that, after some*
| years of experience, the programmers understand the
| business just as well as they do.
|
| Why heartbreaking? That should make it easier for
| everybody to do their job, and to do it better.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It's heartbreaking for BAs, POs, PMs, and every other
| flavor of functionary when they realize that, after some*
| years of experience, the programmers understand the
| business just as well as they do.
|
| Shouldn't be. Very few engineers want to move to BA/PM/PO
| or management track.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think the point is there shouldn't be BA/PM/PO type
| people. It should just be engineers all the way.
|
| Engineers who understand those roles exist and should be
| given the reins. Call them whatever but an engineer with
| domain knowledge is what you need for just about
| everything.
| jcims wrote:
| I'd be curious how well this scales.
|
| We've had quite a bit of success moving to a product
| model for internal services. One thing I've observed
| though is that teams lacking strong PM/PO support tend to
| start looking inward to develop their roadmap rather than
| outward.
|
| This ends up building little silos in which they are
| doing _something_ and it's generally executed well but
| when you explore their plans it can be hard to see how it
| connects to the larger view.
| salawat wrote:
| As a QA person, I have to fight with management to get
| time slotted for exploration, research, and learning
| work. There's no point crapping out automation for a
| domain you can't even hold a conversation with SME with.
| slipframe wrote:
| Wishful thinking.
| Aperocky wrote:
| If this brilliance can be translated to understanding in
| other fields, which usually it can. This requires
| studying, which firms simply tries to avoid.
|
| I am a software engineer now, but my major was mechanical
| engineering, I can barely remember any of my coursework,
| but I understand how physics work in general, and a small
| bonus on how to disect a system. Nobody can know
| everything in today's world and that's why common
| engineering/sense training is so important IMO.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Managers that only see Excel sheets and think software
| development is like factory work.
| dundarious wrote:
| Not sure if you're being serious, and while it hasn't been
| tried AFAIK for the flight software specifically, but cost-
| minimization and outsourcing has been credited as the major
| sources of Boeing's safety problems for the last decade (737
| MAX, 787 Dreamliner, 737NG). Doing more of it would be
| neither a change of course nor an improvement IMO.
| eganist wrote:
| > Not sure if you're being serious, and while it hasn't
| been tried AFAIK for the flight software specifically, but
| cost-minimization and outsourcing has been credited as the
| major sources of Boeing's safety problems for the last
| decade (737 MAX, 787 Dreamliner, 737NG). Doing more of it
| would be neither a change of course nor an improvement IMO.
|
| I hear you, but I suspect aperocky was criticizing that
| exact approach.
|
| I.e it felt like sarcasm.
| dundarious wrote:
| Makes sense, I was genuinely 50/50 about it being
| sarcastic, but I probably should have been more confident
| of it, and at the very least should have given more
| credence to that interpretation than "not sure if...".
| ricardobayes wrote:
| What the cookie-cutter management doesn't understand is 100%
| of the company's value goes home after 5PM.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The MCAS problem had nothing whatsoever to do with
| outsourcing. The problem was in the specification of its
| behavior.
| metalforever wrote:
| This does appear to be related to bad engineering or
| engineers that do not understand how to program safety
| systems.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Actually, the responsible bit of software was already
| outsourced. There was an HN thread on that some time ago.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Yes this is what I'm referring to.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| In a statement Friday, Boeing said it "remains fully focused on
| safety as our highest priority throughout 777X development."
|
| Now finally that FAA doesn't want to repeat the MAX mistake, I
| believe Boeing.
| xjwm wrote:
| More negative press for Boeing, which they probably don't need
| after all the 737 MAX issues. From the layman's perspective, I
| can't tell if Engineers have gotten lazy/complacent in their
| designs, OR if the FAA has gotten significantly better at
| screening for potential issues, OR if we're operating so close to
| the edge of the design envelope that these issues are inevitable.
| I sincerely hope it is number 2 or 3, but my gut feel is that
| cost cutting and efficiency are winning over safety and good
| engineering analysis.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Many of the FAA's comment point at Boeing trying to push the
| regulatory timeline along despite elements (specifically
| software/firmware/avionics) appearing to be not sufficiently
| complete. This isn't the same thing as the design being
| fundamentally bad, or even the implementation being
| fundamentally flawed - it's just not done.
|
| What's not clear is why this is happening. To be clear, nearly
| all possible outcomes point at either a broken management,
| and/or engineering culture at Boeing, but all have different
| flavors. What points at it being a broken management culture
| (predominantly... this certainly doesn't rule out engineering
| problems) is this particular section:
|
| > Citing a "lack of data" and the absence of a Preliminary
| Safety Assessment for the FAA to review, the agency's letter
| declares that Boeing hasn't even met its own process
| requirements.
|
| > Boeing's CCS "review dates have continuously slid over a
| year," the letter notes.
|
| This section indicates that someone told regulatory to start a
| TIA process with FAA despite having not completed a review of a
| vendor supplied critical component (ie, follow their own plan).
| This indicates that multiple areas within the company which
| should have been involved (engineering, quality, and
| regulatory, as well as areas of the company concerned primarily
| with internal development, and out-sourced systems) were likely
| all overruled. These are all areas of the company that are
| supposed to be setup to stop bullshit other areas getting
| through. All of them have slightly misaligned interests
| relative to each other that generally tends to keep stuff in
| check.
|
| Quality is usually very very concerned with at the very least,
| following your own plan ('meeting its own process
| requirements'). No one at regulatory would have looked at these
| gaps (like not at least papering over missing their own process
| requirements), and thought that formally engaging would be a
| good idea.
|
| As someone working in medical devices, this definitely smells
| like something that management rammed through. This doesn't
| absolve any of other parties/groups of responsibility though.
| It just means that you have a problem beyond just your
| documented process, or technical capabilities/competence.
| beavertrilogy wrote:
| > Within the FAA, the person said, "there's a general feeling
| that Boeing has kind of lost a step," referring to the slide
| away from a historic reputation for engineering prowess.
|
| Unfortunately this hits at the development of a culture of
| complacency.
| fzingle wrote:
| The whole 737 Max debacle made two things clear.
|
| First, Boeing doesn't prioritize safety anymore. Profit is the
| driving factor in their decision making. You can read about the
| issues they have assembling the 787 in South Carolina. It is so
| bad some airlines are refusing to take delivery unless the
| plane is validated by the assembly line in Washington.
|
| Second, the FAA was caught being complacent with the 737 Max.
| It will take some time to fix that, but it is clear they don't
| want to make the same mistake. Also, the EASA is no longer just
| rubber stamping approvals following the FAA. Both agencies are
| combining to improve safety, which is highlighting the
| management problems at Boeing.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > Also, the EASA is no longer just rubber stamping approvals
| following the FAA
|
| This to me speaks volumes about our regulatory environment.
| Once upon a time the US regulations were so thorough that
| other countries would just Me-Too certification if the US had
| certified something. That's no longer the case and the EU has
| rightly started to question everything.
|
| The US is in rapid decline on all fronts as half our country
| stands in the way of anyone trying to fix the problems while
| ignoring our rapid erosion or blaming it on immigrants and
| leftists.
| mjevans wrote:
| Also worth noting, the South Carolina plant is NON-union,
| while the Washington (state) plants are unionized.
|
| I speculate that focus on safety and quality of work are
| easier at the unionized plants.
| nickik wrote:
| That is pure speculation. Seems to me the far more simple
| explanation is that Washington is the traditional home that
| had decades of buildup and engineering and tightly
| integrated. Not to mention massive amounts of engineering
| talent in the region.
|
| While the South Carolina plant was probably set up in a
| place with far less history, far less integration with
| engineering, far less historical knowledge and far less
| engineering talent in the area.
|
| And quite likely a much smaller overall labor pool willing
| to move there.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I find it more likely union members are actively sabotaging
| the non-union plant .
| bobthebuilders wrote:
| Just an FYI, it's North Charleston in South Carolina.
| fzingle wrote:
| Thanks -- fixed.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Having worked in large manufacturing facilities that cost
| billions, there is almost a comical and blatant tribalism
| that kicks in between workers/teams simply because they are
| located in different sites. The Chinese sites talk down on
| Vietnamese factories. Texas factories gawk at the ones
| located in Massachussetts. I think this happens in non-
| manufacturing industries as well (Microsoft org chart
| anyone?), but I've seen that the bonds between workers are
| stronger when they get together and build something like a
| giant aeroplane. Leadership has a hardtime navigating the
| waters, especially if something critical (safety) has been
| neglected. It is easy to look at this in union/non-union
| differences, but it's not so simple. I would question the
| leadership and the way they inspire people to build something
| together. I suspect this is what's lacking at Boeing and once
| the culture of not caring about quality kicks in, it is
| difficult eradicate toxicity from this culture.
|
| There is almost an obsession to find out if your BMW was
| manufactured in South Africa or Germany, the latter being
| desirable, on BMW enthusiast forums despite of being made
| with exacting specifications and factory processes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Profit is the driving factor in their decision making.
|
| No profit means no airplanes.
| b-x wrote:
| > [...] after all the 737 MAX _issues_.
|
| I think using the word _issues_ here is diluting the facts. A
| more accurate wording would use _disasters_ or _catastrophes_.
| content_sesh wrote:
| Boeing was my first job out of college (BS in Aero Eng but I
| was hired as a software dev). I worked there for a few years in
| both commercial aviation and defense projects. I've since moved
| out of the aerospace industry entirely in favor of tech.
|
| Boeing is a huge company and I saw just a small slice of it at
| my time there. So with that caveat, in my opinion the root
| cause of Boeing's problems are mismanagement. Mismanagement
| flows down from the top of the organization and impacts
| everything they do.
|
| Here's just one example, off the top of my head: There is no
| "psychological safety" in the workplace. I wasn't aware of this
| term at the time, but it's crystal-clear with the benefit of
| hindsight and a decade more working experience. There is no
| good way to fix irrational or ineffective processes; or at
| least, I've never seen it happen. What I did see, several
| times, is course changes and "new approaches" that result in
| whole departments (dozens of engineers) getting pink slips. So
| as a result there was inherent mistrust of change, because
| "we're going to stop doing X and start doing Y" meant "everyone
| currently doing X needs to scramble to find a new project
| before the hammer drops". It is impossible to build a culture
| of continuous improvement and engineering excellence in such an
| environment.
|
| Again, this is just one example. There's probably hundreds,
| thousands, more. It's mismanagement all the way down.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| What is psychological safety? I don't think I have ever
| worked at a place that had that.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety
|
| https://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings
| /...
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I don't think it's any of the above. I think management
| shortsightedness and greed are the primary culprits. Safety and
| engineering excellence took the back seat for quarterly
| profits.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| My (non-expert) interpretation of this situation:
|
| After 2 planes down, hundreds of deaths and a massive
| international backlash and shitstorm, Boeing tries to get a
| business-as-usual, rubber-stamp, paper-over-the-cracks, fastrack
| approval, and rightly gets shot down.
|
| > Is this just the FAA getting tough because of all the scrutiny?
|
| Hopefully this is just the FAA doing its job from now on.
| colechristensen wrote:
| My interpretation of the situation:
|
| Business as usual being propped up as news because the topic
| gets attention recently.
|
| You test to find issues. You expect a certain sort and number
| of issues to come up in testing. Sometimes an issue comes up
| outside of expectations so you reset your expectations and test
| more.
|
| The FAA _has_ been doing its job and flying is incredibly safe.
| There were lapses, those things are being addressed.
|
| >Boeing tries to get a business-as-usual, rubber-stamp, paper-
| over-the-cracks, fastrack approval
|
| This is way over the top. It's a fun narrative because building
| up an enemy is a good passtime and it gets reader attention.
|
| When you don't know anything about a topic, be hesitant to
| share your theories about how everybody is doing it wrong.
| metalforever wrote:
| No it's not. They've been doing Mickey Mouse engineering and
| are rightfully getting slapped the fuck down
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