[HN Gopher] U.S. is said to open criminal inquiry into Boeing
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. is said to open criminal inquiry into Boeing
Author : carabiner
Score : 463 points
Date : 2024-03-10 03:15 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| colechristensen wrote:
| As they should.
|
| I said somewhat unpopularly at the time that this is not an
| incident that should meet with curious blameless fact finding but
| instead the many responsible parties need to be stomped for
| negligence by the legal system.
|
| Boeing's board needs to be fired and some executives probably
| need jail time. Given the defense position of Boeing, the
| executive branch should probably take some direct action outside
| the judicial system once there are some more clear cause and
| effect facts about what's going on at Boeing.
| nharada wrote:
| I suspect the people charged will be low level mechanics and
| assembly people and maybe a first level manager for appearances
| sake. You really think anyone at the executive level is getting
| arrested for this?
| kabes wrote:
| Sure it will be executives, since they get paid so much for
| all the responsibility they carry /s
| jmspring wrote:
| The whole VW/Audi dieselgate thing took out a couple execs,
| but not the main ones. This may be the same.
| zarzavat wrote:
| On the one hand, Germany doesn't extradite its citizens, so
| there are practical issues, not to mention diplomatic with
| going after top execs.
|
| On the other hand, Boeing is "national security" so there
| will be political pressure to not fuck with it too much.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Or alternatively, there will be immense pressure to do
| so, to ensure that national security deliverables are not
| impacted by such gross negligence.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The main execs still stand trial in Germany so.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >You really think anyone at the executive level is getting
| arrested for this?
|
| There is a current smell of Boeing not being particularly
| cooperative with investigation. That is the usual path that
| gets somewhat more important people charged for committing
| crimes. Various brands of lying, conspiracy, and evidence
| tampering where people get charge for what goes on during the
| investigation instead of the actual incidents.
| rainsford wrote:
| What makes people so convinced the door plug problem is
| obviously something that should be blamed on the executives?
| At the risk of being accused of shilling for corporate
| executives, convincing yourself that low level people can't
| be responsible for an issue before responsibility is
| determined feels like the wrong approach.
| olliej wrote:
| > not an incident that should meet with curious blameless fact
| finding
|
| The NTSB "fact finding" is intentionally and necessarily
| blameless, because if it becomes a prosecutorial investigation
| then you lose cooperation of everyone involved. If you lose
| that cooperation, you can't work out what caused an accident,
| and so the same accidents keeps recurring.
|
| The entire point of the NTSB is to find what caused the
| accident, and that's not going to be "Sarah was tired that
| day", "Frank was distracted by his kid's academic struggles",
| etc. That might be relevant (a common action by budget carriers
| use to be frequent schedule changes for line pilots, so that
| they had "sufficient" sleep by the law but were being forced to
| work through their circadian low, etc - stopping that took
| multiple crashes where the NTSB said "this is the cause"), but
| it isn't going to be the cause here. Afaict it takes multiple
| people to install the plug, all of whom failed to do or check
| the bolts, Boeing has a lot of cross checks, none of them
| caught this, Alaska did an acceptance flight and had performed
| maintenance, but did not catch this, etc.
|
| Firing the mechanics involved doesn't tell you why they messed
| up, it doesn't tell you how this got through checks, it doesn't
| do anything other than provide retribution. It doesn't even do
| anything to the people who presumably created the environment
| that allowed this to happen.
|
| So instead of trying to get retribution, we try to discover
| what made it possible for this to happen, so we can stop the
| same thing happening again in future. That is how flying got as
| safe as it is today.
|
| People who cause accidents due to criminal behavior, or
| corporations that cause the accidents due to criminal behavior,
| can be charged or sued, but saying "I want people punished so
| lets sabotage the accident investigation, and inhibit our
| ability to prevent them in future" is counter productive.
| NegativeK wrote:
| The blameless fact finding is necessary to know who to blame.
| The NTSB needs to know the answers to a bunch of whys about how
| things got to this point so they can work to prevent it in
| other aircraft. That requires them using their time-testing
| blameless process.
|
| Afterward, criminal prosecutors can use those facts as leads to
| pull on when doing their investigation.
| abenga wrote:
| Isn't this by definition not blameless?
| rainsford wrote:
| I don't think "blameless" means nobody can ever be held
| responsible if they actually did something truly malicious,
| negligent, etc. It's that the point of the investigation is
| to improve the system rather than assign blame. This is in
| stark contrast to the post by 'colechristensen assuming
| that someone _must_ be responsible and that they should be
| "stomped for negligence".
|
| I do think the person you're responding to phrased it
| poorly though. While a blameless investigation can result
| in someone being held liable (i.e. "blamed"), an equally
| valid result could be that nobody is blamed when no
| individual liability is warranted by the facts.
| rainsford wrote:
| > Boeing's board needs to be fired and some executives probably
| need jail time.
|
| You're advocating for punishing specific people before any
| evidence has pointed to their guilt, which feels like the
| opposite extreme of treating everyone as blameless (which is
| also not what blameless fact finding is about, as other replies
| correctly pointed out).
| Dah00n wrote:
| Ordered list of reasons I don't believe anything worthwhile will
| happen:
|
| 1. Boeing is a huge defence contractor with both civil and
| military products sold worldwide. A big loss to Boeing will be
| seen as a big loss to American hegemony.
|
| 2. GOTO 1
| Iulioh wrote:
| >Ordered list of reasons I don't believe anything worthwhile
| will happen
|
| ----------------
|
| You can still cut a few heads, the hydra has plenty.
|
| What I'm wondering, could this lead to the government forcing
| Boeing to "be less profitable"?
|
| At the end of the day that's the question.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Actually you could argue having one of your biggest defence
| contractors behave like this is a bigger loss to American power
| than holding their feet to the fire and trying to develop a
| more engineering focused culture.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| > A big loss to Boeing will be seen as a big loss to American
| hegemony
|
| I mean if USA will decide to isolate itself as trend suggest,
| then they will lose that hegemony anyway. So at least they
| could have safe planes
| forkerenok wrote:
| Are you referring to Trump's rhetoric?
|
| I think that would "only" affect the broader foreign policy.
|
| My take is that arms trade is a good business (my assumption)
| and unprincipled foreign policy could see more indiscriminate
| trading taking place. I.e. the opposite effect.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| And what's the point of having US weapons, when USA won't
| give you ammunition because it decided it would be
| escalatory? Swiss arms industry is having same problem, but
| there it is stemming from neutrality of Swiss government.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You forgot one thing: Boeing is not only under FAA and US
| scrutiny, all their processes and planes are certified by EASA,
| and others, as well. The B737 Max crashes alread harmed the
| trust between EASA and FAA, if nothing happens now, EASA might
| very well take seperate action. I have a hunch Boeing doesn't
| want that.
|
| Edit: There is also a couple of high ranking people that are
| "holders" of those certifications, Design Organisation Approval
| and Production Organisation Approval in EASA parlance. Forgot
| the exactvtitle of those people, but usually they aee at least
| VP level, sometimes even C-level and always a seperate one from
| Quality. They are vetted by the national authorities and sign
| to confirm their obligation, incl. _legal_ , to adhere to the
| stabdards and do everything to meet those. In Europe,
| negligence of this can lead to criminal prosecution and jail
| time. No idea how this is done under FAA regulations. Boeing
| peopably doesn't fall under EASA jurisdiction in that regard
| so, having not operations in Europe.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Good, it's only out of sheer luck that nobody was sitting close
| enough to get sucked out mid-flight. On a full flight people
| would have died.
| userbinator wrote:
| If you look at the widely-circulated video, someone was sitting
| one seat over next to the hole. I believe seatbelt use is what
| prevented them from being forcibly expelled from the aircraft.
| This is another event that shows why keeping your seatbelt on
| whenever you're in the seat is a good idea.
| pauljurczak wrote:
| Will there be a heavy discount for a seat next to the door
| plug on 737 Max from now on?
| myself248 wrote:
| Aisle, middle, window, or porch?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > This is another event that shows why keeping your seatbelt
| on whenever you're in the seat is a good idea.
|
| It doesn't show that, any more than a lottery grand prize
| winner demonstrates the wisdom of buying lottery tickets.
|
| There are good reasons to wear your seatbelt while seated,
| such as turbulance; this one-in-a-billion chance isn't one of
| them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| It still covered by wearing a seatbelt, you onow, ad one of
| those things were a seatbelt helps. I mean you cannot wear
| it while for turbulances and simultaniously _not_ wear it
| in case the door next to you blows out. Schroedinger 's
| seatbelt is not a real thing.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I think there was a window that broke on some flight and the
| passenger next to the window died from hitting the window
| frame.
| epolanski wrote:
| I'm not sure he would've with seat belts on.
|
| At a higher altitude and higher pressure difference, without
| seat belts, 100%.
|
| But few miles in the air with seat belts there's not going to
| be a decompression that will strap you out of your seat belts.
| xyst wrote:
| There was a small segment on Boeing recently and the industry as
| a whole on John Oliver's show. Boeing being the main issue and
| how this company has repeatedly shit the bed multiple times since
| the takeover and shift of HQ to Chicago.
|
| But one of the interesting facts I learned: the FAA has
| "regulators" that are paid by the airline industry themselves.
| This is largely due to how inexperienced the FAA is with the
| manufacturing process and thus rely on the industry to self-
| regulate.
|
| Someone may raise an issue on the ground floor of these airline
| manufacturers. But the complaints are sent to people paid for by
| the airline manufacturers.
|
| The conflict of interest is high. Yet FAA thinks this is okay.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _The conflict of interest is high. Yet FAA thinks this is
| okay._
|
| No, because you're leaving out context.
|
| They _abide_ by this, due to a limited budget, and no ability
| to hire, train, and maintain such capabilities.
|
| Amd I'm willing to bet politicians on both sides of the coin
| have contributed to this.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Also many Americans - including many here on HN - reflexively
| oppose regulation. That's one reason regulator's budgets are
| cut (and now GOP-appointed judges are hamstringing the
| 'administrative state). And then when a private business does
| something wrong, the same people ask, 'where are the
| regulators'?
| lultimouomo wrote:
| The problem is real though. It stands to reason that the people
| that know how planes can be built safely are the one building
| planes; otherwise you could get in a situation where "those who
| know, build planes; those who don't, tell them how to do it".
|
| There is a similar problem with financial regulation; my
| understanding is that the knowledge transfer between industry
| and regulation there is solved by the equally problematic
| "revolving doors", where people alternate between regulating
| and advising companies (and thus as regulators they don't want
| to make too many enemies).
| ben_w wrote:
| This is another reason why monopolies are bad. If you have a
| competitor, their employees can regulate you.
|
| Still has a conflict of interest, just a less dangerous one.
| xeromal wrote:
| Sometimes monopolies exist because it's extremely hard to
| succeed even if no one is stopping you
| Iulioh wrote:
| The concept is called "high barrier of entry"
| xeromal wrote:
| I'm sure airplane manufacturing falls under the highest
| barrier to entry besides maybe space exploration
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| They moved the HQ from Chicago to just outside of DC to be ever
| closer to the teat that feeds them.
| icehawk wrote:
| > _This is largely due to how inexperienced the FAA is with the
| manufacturing process and thus rely on the industry to self-
| regulate._
|
| How does the FAA get experience manufacturing planes without
| manufacturing planes?
|
| I'm not sure the people building the planes are the problem.
|
| I'm pretty sure its the management trying to spend less money
| to build planes that's the problem
| 14u2c wrote:
| > How does the FAA get experience manufacturing planes
| without manufacturing planes?
|
| By hiring people who have worked in plane manufacturing.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Exactly. The difference between a Boeing employee doing
| "regulating" versus an ex-Boeing employee who now works for
| the FAA doing the regulating is significant.
| epolanski wrote:
| And then few years later we find out that the FAA
| employee is offered a 3/4 times higher pay in the company
| again..
|
| Just like wall street executives getting in politics to
| regulate banking and then go back to highly paid
| positions or are paid millions in consulting fees for
| doing few speeches an hear.
|
| Anyway I know that FAA investigators aren't necessarily
| from the industry (they are engineers in the field and
| can investigate the matters anyway), but I know little
| about regulators.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It's called regulatory capture.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| https://archive.ph/VsQDn
| TimSchumann wrote:
| https://archive.md/vo0rK
| ralph84 wrote:
| The rot runs so much deeper than whichever scapegoats they want
| to pin it on. The story of Boeing is the story of modern American
| managerial culture. Excess all around. Excessive executive
| compensation. Excessive financialization. Excessive outsourcing.
| Excessive offshoring. Excessive returns to uneconomic activity.
| Excessive credentialism. Excessive lobbying.
|
| Jack Welch is dead but if they wanted to try someone he'd be a
| great person to start with.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I think the only justice would be to see at least one major
| executive go to prison for several years.
| monksy wrote:
| why one?
| adastra22 wrote:
| at least one
| davedx wrote:
| Yeah this isn't just Boeing, it's the senators who don't want
| Boeing jobs to be risked in any serious consequences is my
| interpretation of how this seems to work
| greggsy wrote:
| Jack Welch is a great case study in corporate psychopathy, but
| I feel like the Boeing chapter would address different aspects
| in the future MBA's reading list. This is something more along
| the lines of the Postal Service scandal in the UK.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Real world incidents, and their incident report, that ahould
| be mandatory reading for every engineering and management
| student:
|
| - Chernobyl: great lessons on how to engineer complex
| systems, the importance of safety culture, the role humans
| and management olay and how all of this can lead to disaster
|
| - AF 447: lessons on training and HMI design and human
| factors
|
| - B737 MAX: to be read after Chernobyl, lessons on safety
| again, mandatory essay to be writen about the parallels
| between Chernobyl and the B737 MAX
|
| - Bonus reading for the above two points: Fukushima
|
| - B737 MAX 9 and door plugs (once the final repoets are
| done): lessons on the importance of failure culture and
| strong quality processes
|
| - Bad Blood, Money Men: Everybody needs a primer in corporate
| governance, ethics and the red flags that come with it; add
| the final reporting on the UK postal scandal and FTX
| chx wrote:
| It's interesting you would mention Jack Welch because he said:
|
| > Shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world.
|
| There is myth about how corporate directors have a legal duty
| to maximize "shareholder value" and short term corporate
| profits at the cost of everything else. This is false. No such
| thing exists in corporate law. While Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is
| a deplorable decision, there is a rather remarkable sentence in
| there:
|
| > modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations
| to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do
| not do so.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-354
| tzakrajs wrote:
| > Shareholder primacy was famously established in the
| decision of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. in 1919. In Dodge v. Ford
| Motor Co.'s court opinion, it stated that "there should be no
| confusion" that "a business corporation is organized and
| carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders."
| Because of this opinion, a precedent was set that managers
| had to maximize shareholder profit.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy
| chx wrote:
| Dodge v Ford Motor Co was a Michigan Supreme Court decision
| while I quoted SCOTUS. The very article you linked strongly
| suggests it's not a general law:
|
| > Shareholder primacy is a theory
|
| > The doctrine waned in later years
| xrd wrote:
| I really enjoyed your comment because I have found myself
| speaking that untruth out loud when I lament the state of
| corporate ethics.
|
| But, isn't it the case that activist investors aren't really
| using legal means to ensure that same result; they are using
| other means anyway? And, the net result is the same?
| Sparkyte wrote:
| I really hope they find something. Boeing is stupposed to
| represent America. Products represent the country you belong to
| and are support to incentivize trading. If we are not making good
| planes someone will gap fill that.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Boeing is stupposed to represent America. Products represent
| the country you belong to and are support to incentivize
| trading.
|
| I've certainly never heard that. Boeing is a private entity and
| doesn't represent America; nobody voted for them or chose them,
| and they don't represent America any more than everyone else.
|
| People voted for their representatives. Giving special status
| to these companies ends up giving them special power and
| treatment in order to facilitate their mission, instead of
| equality before the law.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| From the NY Times coverage:
|
| _The company had been asked to produce any documentation it had
| related to the removal and re-installation of the panel. ...
| Boeing said it had conducted an extensive search but could not
| find a record of the information ...
|
| "We likewise have shared with the N.T.S.B. what became our
| working hypothesis: that the documents required by our processes
| were not created when the door plug was opened," the Boeing
| letter reads. "If that hypothesis is correct, there would be no
| documentation to produce."
|
| In the letter, Boeing also said that it had sent the N.T.S.B. all
| of the names of the individuals on the 737 door team on March 4,
| two days after it was requested._
|
| How laughably shameless: Offer the lowest-level employees as
| sacrifices, while burning any connection up the chain to the rest
| of Boeing. If Trump wins, and Boeing pays what he asks, the
| government might blame those employees.
|
| Watch for the leaks that begin to smear them - alcohol use, a
| history of (something bad), etc. A traditional way the powerful
| destroy the weak is to use far superior media resources to smear
| them. True or not, ordinary people can't fight a tide of
| disinformation about them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is no way to excuse behaviour of the people working on
| the door that day, none.
|
| Stopping at that level won't work there, Boeing tries to spin
| it that way, but this plane was not the only one woth issues on
| the door plug. And they already admitted that there was a work
| around decision loop regarding the necessary documentation
| work. And FAA audits _do not_ stop at individuals and their
| behaviour, the _explicitely_ focus on processes and culture (I
| assume FAA does in principle the same thing EASA does).
|
| But hey Boeing tried to blame the 737 Max crashes on the
| pilots, so I guess trying the same with shop floor teams
| tracks.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > There is no way to excuse behaviour of the people working
| on the door that day, none.
|
| I'll wait for all the facts and their defense before drawing
| a conclusion (and even then, I really don't know and would
| trust a jury more). IME, pointing moral outrage at seemingly
| sure targets turns out to be a sure way to make myself the
| sinner.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I am in aerospace, and working at that door plug the way it
| was done, is simply unexcuseable. No documentation, doing
| non-standard work, sloppy work on the safety critical
| bolts... Overall culture is to blame, no doubt about that.
| And still, it does not absolve the rank and file.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > working at that door plug the way it was done, is
| simply unexcuseable. No documentation, doing non-standard
| work, sloppy work on the safety critical bolts
|
| You're assuming all that is true. Do we have more than
| Boeing's possible CYA claims to go on? (An honest
| question.) Also, have we heard their side of the story?
| hef19898 wrote:
| It peetty much looks like that; Boeing admitted there is
| no documentation to come by, it was not the only time the
| mistake happened and we have rather credible
| whistelblower. Add to that a DoJ investigation, and the
| above looks like a realistic scenario.
|
| We will know once the FAA and NTSB did their
| investigation and audits, and published their reports.
|
| Just to repeat: When you work in aerospace, you do not
| work on an aircraft without documenting your work and any
| deviations or non-conformities. Period. And even if you
| are forced and pressured by higher ups to do so, you do
| it properly. The fact that we have a whistleblower tells
| me rank and file are less than happy with the status quo
| so. Doesn't change the fact that someone made a serious
| mistake working on an aircraft. That alone is serious,
| even if it wouldn't have resulted in an incident.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Thanks, and thanks for your insider insights.
|
| > Boeing admitted there is no documentation to come by
|
| Doesn't that serve Boeing's interests, to bury any record
| of possible harmful events, and to also bury the record
| of that information passing through other hands at
| Boeing?
|
| In other words, should 'Boeing _admitted_ ' be taken at
| face value, as an admission of guilt, rather than a
| possible coverup of much worse and a way to throw the
| line workers under the wheels?
| hef19898 wrote:
| No, the intentional absence of documentation is in itself
| a serious issue. It can even be assumed that tjis
| documentation, wpupd it exist, wouod proof wrong doing.
| It tje opposite of Boeing interest to hide stuff.
| tjpnz wrote:
| CEOs often talk about accountability. Would this extend to Dave
| Calhoun going to prison?
| elric wrote:
| John Oliver recently did an episode on the Boeing shitstorm. And
| while I would take anything a comedian says with a large grain of
| salt, the undercover staff interviews seemed pretty damning. I'm
| not sure if it's criminal negligence on Boeing's part, but it
| seems pretty obvious that engineering excellence isn't on the top
| of their minds.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > the undercover staff interviews seemed pretty damning
|
| This is the least credible possible evidence, because shows
| like that have a long history of doing selective editing or
| purposely taking things out of context.
|
| Sometimes they don't have to because what they're reporting is
| real, but you can't tell that one way or the other just by
| watching the segment.
| Zetaphor wrote:
| I was unaware of these accusations, do you have have any
| supporting information?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| They're comedy shows. They send someone to record an hour-
| long interview but the whole segment is 5 minutes long and
| the clip they air is only a few seconds. Selective editing
| is built into the format, they don't spend the airtime to
| run the full interview and their purpose is to choose the
| short clip which has the most comedy value or makes the
| target look bad.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There was not a single interview done by LWTN for that
| segment, they took those from other sources. And the
| segment was pretty good actually, covered all the major
| points and didn't have any major errors. Actually, it is
| light years ahead of what other news outlets reported.
| Surey it is not on the same level as an audit report, but
| that is not its purpose. It is much closer to a
| comprehensive executive summary of an incident report
| than anything I have ever seen in media elsewher.
|
| Re: selection of statements, the reports in Fukushima and
| Cherbobyl do the same. The point is to showcase the
| underlying issues with concrete examples and statements.
| Nothing wrong with that per-se. And in th LWTN segment,
| it was not done in bad faith, it is bot FOX news after
| all.
| BuckYeah wrote:
| Well put. Most skeptics these days are borderline
| conspiracists when it comes to delivering their opinions.
| The person above only needed to say, "trust but verify
| comedic claims" but instead they went down the all too
| common road of dogwhistling to other "skeptics." I'm
| confident that quite a lot of John Oliver's claims are
| verifiable (I have spent a lot of time doing my own
| research on the claims after watching the show). Not
| saying I'm a brilliant investigator but wanted to offer
| an opposing opinion. Blatantly sowing distrust is exactly
| the kind of behavior a true skeptic hopes to avoid.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > It is much closer to a comprehensive executive summary
| of an incident report than anything I have ever seen in
| media elsewher.
|
| This is the danger in it.
|
| They pick someone they don't like and basically do a hit
| piece. Now sometimes the target is actually bad and
| deserving of the criticism, and then if you try to get
| the real story, the real story is that the target is
| actually bad and deserving of the criticism.
|
| But then they'll run a segment in the same style where
| the target is just someone from the outgroup of the
| show's target audience.
| Lendal wrote:
| They do that because nobody wants to look at hundreds of
| dead bodies or talk to grieving widows, or search through
| rubble for broken airplane parts or data recorders.
| That's not so funny.
|
| Just because comedy shows focus on entertainment value
| doesn't mean there's no evidence. They have a different
| focus from investigators or courts, but in democratic
| countries, the funds to run investigations come from
| politicians and public outcry, and that comes from the
| people actually giving a sh*t about it. So they do
| perform a function.
| loktarogar wrote:
| "Shows like that" or this show in particular?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Shows using the format where they do an interview and then
| selectively air parts of it rather than the whole thing. In
| general The Daily Show and its offspring -- not the
| interviews that happen in front of the audience in the
| studio, the ones for the pre-recorded segments.
| loktarogar wrote:
| Have you seen this show at all? It generally dedicates
| the bulk of its episode to a single story and goes in
| depth. Not saying this can't be happening, and there's
| always going to be stuff left out in even a 30 minute
| timeframe, but it tries to educate on the "complete
| picture" with nuanced points on a single issue per ep
| Voultapher wrote:
| With going in depth you mean:
|
| 1. Continuously make fun of superficial attributes and
| mannerisms
|
| 2. Selectively present a biased narrative without
| opposition
|
| 3. Push said narrative with ad hominem attacks and jokes
| about someones' appearance
|
| Even when I agree with the narrative, the mechanisms by
| which the audience is persuaded feels quite disingenuous
| to me. Look at the episodes he did about Trump in 2016,
| the host spends half the time making fun of small hands,
| when you could fill hours with Trump's fascism. My
| perspective is based on episodes I watched in 2016. The
| small bits I've seen from him and other similar formats
| since then suggest it is still this way.
| hef19898 wrote:
| It is a _comedy_ show after all. One that tackles very
| serious subjects in ahumerous way. Doesn make the
| reporting wrong.
|
| And, this show in particular, gets the fact right almost
| all of the time. And it provided more context and details
| on the whole Boeing saga than any other news source I
| have seen or read so far since the door plug blew out.
| Heck, going back to the 737 Max crashes I would be hard
| pushed to find main stream media reporting that was,
| factually and regarding context, better.
| Voultapher wrote:
| The thing that irked me was the mechanism by which it
| seemed people were convinced. It could be used to push
| whatever viewpoint they want to push. While it is a
| comedy show, they do a for the rest of the industry
| embarrassingly thorough job of investigating topics. So
| that puts a lot of responsibility on them.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| They're not making fun of Trumps small hands, they're
| making fun of his belief that hand size is important. So
| it's not an attack on their appearance.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Thanks! This whole Trumps hand size thing was started by
| Trump himself.
| photonthug wrote:
| Speaking as a person with an amazing ability to offend
| and alienate folks on both sides of the political
| spectrum.
|
| I like it when John Oliver or whoever goes after
| corruption and incompetence, but it still has to be said
| that popular comedy news shows are kind of the left's
| version of Fox News in terms of shrillness, pandering,
| and brainwashing. While episodes on many topics are
| cringey to watch, at least they aren't completely post-
| truth yet. When the writers do wade all the way in to
| culture war nonsense, I think they do this with a certain
| self awareness and I like to think they feel bad about
| it.
|
| It would be easier to tolerate bias or low-brow ad
| hominem in comedy news if it wasn't also _still better_
| than most "real" news. I don't really want to hold a
| comedian to a journalist's standard, but the real
| question is where are the journalists at anyway?
|
| NPR (my old favorite) has jumped the shark. Other outlets
| generally harass me with paywalls when I'm already forced
| to sift through a total shit show of a website with op
| Ed's no one asked for, celebrity gossip, and lengthy gpt-
| powered regurgitation all fluffing up the same few short
| blurbs from the AP wire.
|
| Mainstream media for both the left and the right,
| domestic and foreign, all have websites with ads like
| "free WiFi for senior citizens" and "Just add this one
| weird thing to your toothpaste" next to big brain
| articles about dealing with disinformation in the next
| round of elections.
|
| None of this is very confidence inspiring, so no, I doubt
| they'll sell many subscriptions, and yeah, I expect
| quality will continue to decline. So I guess comedian-
| journalism is probably here to stay, regardless of
| whether I like the format
| GiorgioG wrote:
| > It would be easier to tolerate bias or low-brow ad
| hominem in comedy news if it wasn't also still better
| than most "real" news. I don't really want to hold a
| comedian to a journalist's standard, but the real
| question is where are the journalists at anyway?
|
| The journalists are in the same boat as the engineers at
| Boeing: being held hostage by MBAs management at the
| behest of shareholders.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Can we please stopping the cringe-meme of blaming MBAs? I
| assure you, engineers are just as prone to fall for greed
| and being unethical and sycophantic as MBAs, doctors,
| journalists or software engineers.
| M4rkJW wrote:
| The MBAs trying to keep old media afloat are held hostage
| by shareholders who don't even watch the product. The
| general public has become increasingly less willing to
| spend any amount of time (eyes on ads) or money
| (subscriptions) on broadcast and print journalism. A
| whole generation of consumers has grown up on ad-free
| content and cannot fathom how the business model worked
| so well, pre-AdSense. Even if they can comprehend
| broadcast and print business models, they refuse to
| participate and then complain about the rising cost of
| subscription services; services that are now
| experimenting with reintroducing advertisements.
|
| Journalists are in a boat that Youtube, Facebook
| Marketplace/Craigslist and Google search plowed into.
| Until consumer habits change, the sinking continues.
| loktarogar wrote:
| > Continuously make fun of superficial attributes and
| mannerisms
|
| > Push said narrative with ad hominem attacks and jokes
| about someones' appearance
|
| > Look at the episodes he did about Trump in 2016, the
| host spends half the time making fun of small hands, when
| you could fill hours with Trump's fascism.
|
| It is foremost a comedy show yes, and they present things
| in a light hearted way. For an American show that means
| stuff like that. Mind you the jokes about Trumps' hands
| are more about something that Trump brings up constantly,
| a weird public insecurity about the size of them.
|
| > Selectively present a biased narrative without
| opposition
|
| I mean. I didn't say it doesn't pick a side. But it does
| go in depth, and it does present opposing arguments
| reasonably faithfully (even if it immediately rebuts
| them) (in my opinion!)
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> Shows using the format where they do an interview and
| then selectively air parts of it rather than the whole
| thing.
|
| Isnt this how newspapers work? Isnt this also how
| journalism works in general? If that wasnt the case, you
| wouldnt have two/three completely different takes on
| stories given which side of the political spectrum you're
| on.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The recorded comments were from the 787 days, and LWTN didn't
| produce those recordings themselves.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| That doesn't really tell you anything. The way the format
| works is they take a large amount of material and pare it
| down to whatever they can find to make the target look
| stupid or nefarious. It works the same whether they were
| holding the camera or not.
|
| Also:
|
| > Sometimes they don't have to because what they're
| reporting is real, but you can't tell that one way or the
| other just by watching the segment.
| hef19898 wrote:
| As someone who read the official reports on the B737 MAX
| and the 787 battery fires and who is from the industry, I
| can tell you that your accusations are completely
| unfounded in reality.
|
| By the way, LWTN was not once found to have wrong
| reporting on any of their subjects. Last party to pull
| them to court over it was this cial guy. And it was found
| that the reporting was factually correct. Not like, say,
| Fox News with its usual defwnc ein court that boils down
| to "who in his right mind would take us for a serious
| _news_ outlet employing _journalists_ ".
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > As someone who read the official reports on the B737
| MAX and the 787 battery fires and who is from the
| industry, I can tell you that your accusations are
| completely unfounded in reality.
|
| You're defending this particular story when I never
| claimed it was necessarily false.
|
| > By the way, LWTN was not once found to have wrong
| reporting on any of their subjects. Last party to pull
| them to court over it was this cial guy. And it was found
| that the reporting was factually correct.
|
| That is how "out of context" works. They don't
| affirmatively lie, they lie through omission. They have
| lawyers who know how defamation laws work.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Man, _you_ started all of this by pointing to the
| interviews in the particular show about Boeing, and you
| wonder why people keep coming back to that particular
| show?
|
| You did point out those "interviews", which weren't even
| interviews to begin with but recording of shop floor
| banter, without realizing they were done by Al-Jazzeera
| and not LWTN, not realizing they covered the B787 and
| were done over a decade ago.
|
| And then you accusse others of discussing out of
| _context_? Difficult to have context when you din 't even
| get your basic facts right, isn't it?
| justinclift wrote:
| > I never claimed it was necessarily false.
|
| Doesn't real line up with this, which is essentially
| claiming its false:
|
| > ... shows like that have a long history of doing
| selective editing or purposely taking things out of
| context.
| leereeves wrote:
| Last Week Tonight certainly used the same "we're
| entertainment, not news" argument in their own defense:
|
| > HBO also argued that other statements were opinions and
| jokes, not factual assertions
|
| > HBO said Murray's accusations were a matter of "hurt
| feelings about jokes," and said jokes are protected
| speech.
|
| https://www.thewrap.com/coal-magnates-lawsuit-john-
| oliver-di...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Similar, but not the same. Fox News is repeatily caught
| lying, and paying through the nose for it, while
| factually LWTN, so far, never did that.
|
| Also, if I remeber correctly, Murray didnnot attack them
| on the reportes facts, did he?
| leereeves wrote:
| Of course they were smart enough not to make a factual
| claim like Murray was intentionally getting people
| killed. They were able to convey the same message using
| jokes and a few cherry picked facts, and thus be immune
| to defamation suits.
|
| With jokes like "looks like a geriatric Dr. Evil",
| "appears to be on the side of black lung", and "[his
| political activity is] the equivalent of watching My Girl
| and rooting for the bees" they suggested that Murray was
| evil without making any actionable claims.
|
| And in their show after the case was dismissed, they
| embraced the "who in his right mind would take [this]
| seriously" defense wholeheartedly: accusing Murray of
| things like being Epstein's prison guard.
|
| Factual (even if obviously untrue), but not defamation
| because, much as the court wrote in the case against
| Tucker Carlson (and before that, a similar case against
| Rachel Maddow): _"the statements are rhetorical hyperbole
| and opinion commentary intended to frame a political
| debate, and, as such, are not actionable as defamation"_
| hef19898 wrote:
| Those cherry picked facts came from actual law suites in
| which Murray and his company was found liable, if I
| remember correctly.
| leereeves wrote:
| Looking for that, I found wrongful death lawsuits that
| were settled under nondisclosure agreements, so they
| probably weren't LWT's source.
|
| I also found that Genwal Resources, a subsidiary of a
| subsidiary of Murray Energy, agreed they had violated two
| safety regulations.
|
| They were fined $500,000, but the government said _" We
| were unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the
| company's actions caused the mine collapse"_[1].
|
| LWT didn't include that. Instead they simply said "the
| government's investigation...found it was caused by
| unauthorized mining practices." Don't you think "we were
| unable to prove [that]" should have been included by LWT?
|
| 1: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2012/03/09/148319836...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Now I could do my own digging, or I could trust Murrays
| lawyers doing that for their law suite against LWT (no
| idea why I kept adding a N...). A law suite they lost. If
| LWT reporting were factually wrong, I assume it would
| have been brought up in court.
| kortilla wrote:
| >By the way, LWTN was not once found to have wrong
| reporting on any of their subjects.
|
| There is no law for "wrong reporting". LWTN has not lost
| a defamation suit, which is very narrow.
|
| "Wrong reporting" is a much broader ethical category of
| lying by omission to create a narrative or choosing
| unreliable sources. Think of things like NYTimes and the
| Iraq War. Or basically any article of the format "x% of
| some group wants Y evil thing".
| chatmasta wrote:
| What do you think of those "man on the street" interviews
| where they ask people questions like "point to America on
| a map," and everyone gets it wrong, except the last
| person in the segment?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Those are not my kind of humor. To my knowledge, LWT
| doesn't do those. I could be mistaken, as I honestly do
| remember _all_ their episodes by heart.
| piva00 wrote:
| I watched the original report from Al-Jazeera on the 787
| (called "Broken Dreams") where those factory line scenes
| were filmed when it came out in 2014. There's no editing
| from LWTN to make it look worse, in my opinion the
| original reporting was much more damning than what the
| clips show.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Damn, I missed that, "Broken Dreams" I mean. Have to
| track that one down!
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| That's how reporting and journalism works. No one watches
| a multi hour interview with Putin by Tucker Carlson. It's
| boring as hell and just Putin talking about his dreams.
| The only known instance of this would be the Frost-Nixon
| interviews, which occurred after the US elected an actual
| criminal to the highest office.
|
| No one makes a career about reporting how the free coffee
| in the break room was changed to a pay your own way plan.
| psychoslave wrote:
| "Donnez-moi six lignes ecrites de la main du plus honnete
| homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre."
|
| That is "Give me six lines written by the hand of the most
| honest man, and I will find something in them to have him
| hanged."
|
| Generally attributed to Richelieu
| hef19898 wrote:
| Wow, Richelieu. You know what, this changes if whatever
| was written is backed up by actual facts, like recorded
| quality issues being left unmittigated that let to hull
| losses and serious incidents as it did in the case of
| Boeing. That is the context that was provided. If you
| read the official reports on Chernobyl and Fukushima, you
| will find the same quotes to drive the reported points
| home.
| themadturk wrote:
| Very true, especially if the authority who does the
| hanging controls the interpretation of the writing.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| So how about the Seattle Times?
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
| aerospace/boein...
|
| Rather than fix their airplanes Boeing is trying to discredit
| the NTSB.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >This is the least credible possible evidence
|
| How about the U.S. government opening a criminal inquiry that
| corroborates what they were reporting?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| That's not evidence at all; there was going to be an
| investigation no matter what.
|
| That said, I was greatly amused by this in the article:
|
| > "In an event like this, it's normal for the D.O.J. to be
| conducting an investigation," Alaska Airlines said in a
| statement. "We are fully cooperating and do not believe we
| are a target of the investigation."
|
| > Boeing had no comment.
| ulfw wrote:
| Those interviews the comedian has shown are a decade old from
| Al Jazeera:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your
| 'scare' 'quotes'. Qatar also famously got fired by Airbus as
| a customer and refused to take 787s built in South Carolina.
| It's not like there are a lot of other options for them.
| DANmode wrote:
| Aside from other, more direct points: the C-Suite of an
| airline isn't riding its planes.
| jen20 wrote:
| I've personally run into both Richard Branson flying Virgin
| Atlantic and Oscar Munoz flying United. The C Suite of an
| airline is likely using it plenty.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| John Oliver is funny until he covers a segment that you have
| spent a lot of personal time researching then it becomes
| shocking when you realize that he selectively edits things to
| craft a certain narrative in the viewers mind. I also saw this
| with Trevor Noah when Bernie Sanders was running. I was a
| volunteer tasked with digging up lots of old videos of him for
| promotional material and I was shocked to see some of the
| videos I found aired on the Daily Show but deceptively cut to
| make him look like a grumpy mean old man when if you watched
| the whole clip it would show the opposite.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Yes, that is also true for the other side of the political
| spectrum. Would you believe it: _all_ humans have biases?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Is there a right wing comedy show that is in the format of
| John Oliver or Daily Show? Closest I can think of is
| Babylon Bee but they produce (unfunny) original parodies.
| krapp wrote:
| I've seen a couple of attempts - like 1/2 hour news hour
| - but they're all terminally unfunny. The problem is
| punching up vs punching down. Left-wing humor tends to
| make a mockery of power and social injustice, whereas
| right-wing comedy tends to make a mockery of groups and
| ideas that most of society has sympathy for. The right is
| simply too cruel to be funny.
| chgs wrote:
| A left wing show that spent its time attacking Bernie
| Sanders?
| mistermann wrote:
| It would make sense if it was more so a neoliberal show
| posing as a left wing show, comedy is one of the easiest
| ways to divide up a public so they can be conquered.
| pastor_williams wrote:
| This might be an example of a bubble you unknowingly live
| in. "Gutfeld" is the right wing equivalent and has more
| viewers than the Colbert late night show which you might
| have heard of.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| With shows like this, people have a case of Gell-Mann amnesia
| too.
|
| https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
|
| I think Oliver is funny. His show makes good points and gives
| good arguments. It should not, however, by itself be the sole
| basis of one's opinion on any given topic (not many things
| should) as many take it to be. It is intelligent and honest
| but also one-sided and biased.
|
| They are, at least, not generally purposefully misleading in
| service of their bias, which is why I think people trust them
| more than a lot of other sources like cable news.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Agree, nobody should base their opinions on a single source
| of news.
|
| As someone who stopped taking certain news outlets _on my
| side of the political spectrum_ serious after running into
| Gell-Mann once to often, I have to say, with decent
| backgroind in the topic we discuss here, aerospace and
| quality and such, this particular LWTN segment got it
| right. Heck, some of it was even than what I heard in my
| life from co-workers in the industry. I wouldn 't go as far
| as doing a reverse Gell-Mann on LWTN based on this, but
| overall their reporting is, factually, correct. And they
| don't even try to hide their bias, nor donthey use to spin
| a story, which is refreshing if you ask me.
| epolanski wrote:
| I mean what you say is 100% correct about any kind of
| information including books and documentaries.
|
| More often than not you won't find truth even if you read
| thousands of pages from a lawsuit.
| balls187 wrote:
| In the segment about Boeing they purposefully mislead the
| audience into believing instead of issuing a software update,
| the company issued stock buy backs. Looking at the dates if
| the source articles shows a much different timeline.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, it actually does at up. Don't forget, the software
| was initially insufficient as well.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| We live in a timeline where a comedian will actually point to
| more facts than, say, a "serious" anchor like Sean Hannity or
| Tucker Carlson, who will just blatantly make stuff up. "I am
| just asking questions".
| 7952 wrote:
| There is an honesty in humour.
| epolanski wrote:
| We have a saying in Italy, "Pulcinella while laughing and
| joking always says the truth".
|
| Pulcinella is the carnival character from Naples and he's a
| joker.
| reyleu6 wrote:
| Engineers stopped running such firms long ago cause they are
| totally inept at financial engineering. Its the financial
| engineers who run things, and you can bet right now whatever
| happens they will get the govt to bail them out. The culture
| will only change when financial engineering is reined in or
| part of tech/engineering education. Until then John Oliver will
| have a never ending supply of such stories from helpless
| engineers who are so out of control over anything they run to
| stand up comedians to cry about their problems.
| hef19898 wrote:
| As a half-engineer myself, I have to say this: people need to
| be reminded that it was _engineers_ that were at the highest
| levels, CEO and down, behind Dieselgate and, yes, the issues
| at Boeing as well. Engineers are not per-se better at
| business ethics or corporate governance. Greed is universal.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Dieselgate was akin to a student learning the whole
| geography syllabus just before the exam, then getting a top
| score and claiming to be good at geography.
|
| Just because you learnt the exact topics that were to be
| examined doesn't mean you're good at the whole subject.
|
| Likewise, those diesel cars were very good at the exact
| things that were tested, and terrible at everything else.
| They were literally engineered to the exact test syllabus.
|
| Yet we somehow don't call the student a cheater.
|
| In my view, in both cases, the shortcoming is with the
| test/syllabus designer. The test topics need to be not
| announced beforehand, and the sylabus needs to not be rigid
| and narrower than the field in the real world.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That is, lets be generous, an interesting take.
|
| Fact is, VW engines had a mode recognizing a test and
| adopted AdBlue and fuel mixture to meet emission
| standards. On the road, these engines ran dirty. That was
| _explicitely_ stated to be illegal in the applicable
| laws.
|
| It was all the other brands that played, as it turned out
| also illegal, games with temp windows and such.
|
| Blaming this on regulators is putting this while story on
| its head.
| troad wrote:
| The average engineer would willingly soldier ebola
| dispersal pods to killer drones if it paid well or posed an
| interesting technical challenge. I get the fashion is to
| blame the MBAs, but c'mawn. Have you met engineers? In
| human history, has anyone ever said, "I really need some
| ethical advice - I'll go ask the engineers"?
| api wrote:
| Only comedians can tell the truth sometimes.
|
| That was the classical role of the jester in some monarchies.
| They were the only person who could openly criticize the king
| without retribution (in theory).
| pauljurczak wrote:
| Deferred prosecution worked as intended, i.e. no effect. This
| company is too big to fail. Some mid-level employee will be
| sacrificed to mollify DOJ, and business as usual will continue.
| Crapification of the economy continues...
| hayst4ck wrote:
| The 737 MAX, stock trading senators, and bribe taking justices
| are all the same thing for the same reason.
|
| _Power is doing something and then saying "what are you going to
| do about it?"_
|
| The supreme court takes bribes and says "what are you going to do
| about it?" They clearly have the power to take bribes. Nobody
| appears to be able to do anything about it.
|
| Congresspeople trade stocks of companies they regulate in a gross
| conflict of interest, then defend their ability to be corrupt _as
| a right._ "What are you going to do about it?" Congress clearly
| has the power to be openly corrupt without consequences.
|
| The 2008 crisis was wall street telling the government that they
| have many answers to that question. "Too big to fail" was born to
| capture the idea that there is an entity so powerful there are no
| reasonable answers to them asking "what are you going to do about
| it?"
|
| Boeing is too big to fail. Boeing knows that there is no one with
| the will or fortitude to do anything about putting profit over
| safety. Investigations to make it look like you're doing
| something, sure. Canning a few low level employees that you can
| pin blame on, no problem. Sacrifice a contractor? That's what
| they're there for. But to hold a CEO or shareholders responsible
| for gross mismanagement in any kind of meaningful way,
| threatening all other American oligarchs and hordes of people
| rich enough to say "what are you going to do about it?" without
| answer?
|
| Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy, is the past's
| best answer to Boeing. He deeply understood the forces at play.
| He had this to say to congress: Political and
| economic power is increasingly being concentrated among a few
| large corporations and their officers - power they can apply
| against society, government and individuals. Through their
| control of vast resources, these large corporations have
| become, in effect, another branch of government. They
| often exercise the power of government, but without the checks
| and balances inherent in our democratic system.
|
| Americans need to start thinking about how to answer someone
| clearly more powerful saying "what are you going to do about it?"
| Because every time we say "nothing" those people get that much
| more powerful.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The premise of "too big to fail" is that a thing is depended on
| by too many other things, innocent people, to allow it to
| suddenly become rubble. It's an insurance company and its
| policyholders did nothing wrong. It's a bank and its depositors
| did nothing wrong. It's Boeing and they're the sole supplier of
| some critical things.
|
| The "easiest" way to fix this is to bail them out, because then
| the company itself can carry on fulfilling its obligations and
| you don't need all the people relying on them to _individually_
| apply to get bailed out or otherwise have to rearrange their
| affairs when the institution is instantly vaporized. But that,
| as they say, is a moral hazard.
|
| What you really want to do is to destroy them in slow motion.
| Step one, the existing owners get nothing, they chose their
| executives poorly and suffer the consequences. Step two, those
| executives are out too, and the company gets new leadership and
| a bailout with the condition that the company will soon cease
| to exist and be sold off for parts, but first it's going carry
| on operating for a bit to satisfy its obligations to innocent
| third parties.
| piva00 wrote:
| Instead of bailing them out while keeping it private do the
| right thing: public money bailed them out, so it's a public
| company now, nationalise, save the innocents from harm, and
| sell its parts to recoup the bailout after it's been properly
| managed through the crisis.
|
| Leaving it to private investors to ride on the public saving
| a company is just another slap on the face. Yes, I know that
| the bailouts from 2008 have recouped the public money
| invested but it's a moral hazard to allow private investors
| to use this mechanism. Over time private investors will just
| find loopholes on how to leverage public bailouts for their
| own gain, they have a massive incentive for gaming it.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| This isn't how class systems work in the US. The moral
| hazard is the point. The tails I win, heads you lose
| policies for these giant companies and their owners is not
| an accident. It is deliberate and crafted. What you are
| suggesting is no less than to change the entire social
| hierarchy of the country.
| jmholla wrote:
| Isn't that what this thread is about? The GP started
| talking about how this social hierarchy is ruining the
| country.
| javajosh wrote:
| Good post, and the pat response is "vote them out". The problem
| with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of
| corruption is a problem, and the individual pols that do can't
| get elected on that issue alone. That is, there's a critical
| "bundling" problem with modern politics: you have to accept a
| bundle of 100 positions, and "integrity issues" are usually
| pretty low. Even worse, a cynical body politic begins to
| perceive "integrity" as a liability, that someone with
| conscience and self-restraint is actually LESS capable of
| "winning" within a corrupt system. You've now allowed your
| short-term need to win to further degrade the system, which of
| course becomes a positive feedback loop.
|
| (This bundling problem affects all kinds of products. When
| you're shopping, you pay attention to price, and everything
| else is secondary. In a perfect market, you'd price in the
| forced arbitration clause, or you'd price in the social cost of
| anti-competitive business practices of the vendor. But it just
| doesn't happen because the cognitive load is too high.)
|
| I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to the
| idea that character and integrity mattered most in our pols.
| Even that system was gamed, its still better than overtly,
| cynically abandoning society's most laudable values.
| metabagel wrote:
| > The problem with this is that the neither party really
| thinks this kind of corruption is a problem
|
| You're half right.
| javajosh wrote:
| Sadly no. Bernie Sanders explicitly put Citizens United at
| the top of his legislative priority list. Clinton used her
| pull with the DNC to undermine his nomination, and the rest
| is history. This was a triumph of the corrupt status quo
| over a high integrity pol, and it happened within the DNC.
| metabagel wrote:
| > I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to
| the idea that character and integrity mattered most in our
| pols.
|
| It still matters if you're a Democrat. Hillary Clinton was
| crucified for keeping her official emails on a private
| server.
|
| We have an unequal system, where one party is held to a high
| standard, and the standard for the other party is always low
| enough for them to slither over.
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| I find your take partisan. During primaries her competition
| tried to use it as leverage against her which is a
| completely normal thing to do in politics. It basically
| went away when Bernie, in one of the debates, decided he
| was tired of hearing about her emails, establishing that
| this is something we're just not going to talk about
| anymore because it's too damaging to our top candidate.
|
| Trump harped on it with the whole "lock her up" stuff,
| again because it's politically advantageous. He reneged on
| it once in office, admitting he wasn't going to pursue any
| charges against her. It was probably calculated that doing
| so would be bad optics as using the justice system to go
| after the top candidate of the competing party would be
| considered divisive. It was also potentially unproductive
| as she had already lost. There's also the element of
| personal connection, Trump was an NY Democrat for decades
| and had known the Clintons personally. Their daughters had
| a friendship in the past.
|
| Also see George Santos as a counterpoint. Fellow NY
| Republican congressmen went after him knowing that their
| party would likely lose his seat. Again, I interpret their
| actions as self serving, they wanted to distance themselves
| from his shenanigans to their own constituents and appear
| to be acting objectively rather than in the interest of
| their party but the right result was achieved regardless.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Rickover was no saint himself, see the articles linked here
| -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 - in the
| discussion about sama citing him.
| korginator wrote:
| Boeing's dismal track record has been years in the making and the
| problems we're seeing were inevitable. However, I'm not holding
| my breath here hoping for a real change. Boeing is a huge defence
| contractor with deep connections. I hope I'm mistaken but I doubt
| we'll see any real systemic change.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Two things: Boeing doesn't have just to worry about the FAA and
| US prosecution, depending on the outcome their civil aircraft
| business might face a ton of EASA scrutiny as well. And that
| actually _is_ a big deal in the industry.
|
| And public pressure, Boeings reputation is not great at the
| moment. If that pressure is kept up, it can lead to change as
| well.
| mnau wrote:
| Their defense and space contracts are not going well.
|
| KC-46 tanker replacement was a fixed-price contract and Boeing
| lost $7 billion on that.
|
| Starliner is a similar story, $1.5 billion down the hole.
|
| EDIT:
|
| T-7A Red Hawk trainer: $1 billion in losses. Air force one
| VC-25B program: Its losses are now at about $2.4 billion. T-38
| Talon trainer, MQ-25...
|
| Yea, it's not going well for them. Other programs are still
| fine, e.g. F-35, but fixed price contracts are in a dump.
| epolanski wrote:
| They also losing gargantuan amounts on the new air force one.
| epolanski wrote:
| Eventually they are accountable first and foremost to their
| shareholders.
|
| And the reputation and incidents is poking a hole in
| shareholders pockets.
| justinclift wrote:
| Does this "we can't find the documentation" match what the
| whistleblower was saying in Jan?
|
| https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-whistleblower-production-...
|
| It doesn't really seem like it?
| blueflow wrote:
| I'm sure recording and documenting your work is legally
| required to get certified for aviation things.
| hef19898 wrote:
| From what I read, there was seperate decision channel to
| decide what had to be documebted how at Boeing, which is a
| big problem in itself.
|
| The whistelblower account actually rracks, depending on
| _which_ kind of documentation you talk about. You now, the
| lazy rethoric trick of providing a technically correct
| answer, what Boeing did, while still lying through obmission
| of the general point. If so, don 't worry, the NTSB and FAA
| will find out.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > You now, the lazy rethoric trick of providing a
| technically correct answer, what Boeing did, while still
| lying through obmission of the general point.
|
| Sounds exactly like MCAS.. That omission. I thought that
| was just to preserve the same type certificate without
| retraining but it seems like a more systemic problem then.
| bumby wrote:
| The article points out that the DoJ previously charged
| Boeing with withholding information in the MCAS issue
| (but later dropped the charges).
| blueflow wrote:
| I assumed the regulatory body define what kinds of
| documentation needs to recorded, not Boing. And
| noncompliance (including not being able to produce that
| documentation on request) with that might be a (criminal)
| offense.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And you are absolutely right. To some details, for anyone
| interested (from an EASA point of view, working in Europe
| I never had to bother directly with the FAA):
|
| - regulators provide general rules to be followed
|
| - companies define theirbway of complying with those
| rules, the Means-of-compliance, and relevant processes
| and tools
|
| - regulators audit those, sign of on them and audit the
| final product, hardware, software and documentation (!)
| to make sure compabies have their shit in order
|
| - deviations are documented and recorded on work order
| level, e.g. one has to remove a door plug even this isn't
| part of the work instructions; in this case, either some
| non-standard instructions exist to be pulled up or an ad-
| hoc obe is written, both have to signe off by quality
| before the work is done, then said work is duly
| documented on work order level and again signed off and
| checked by quality (this is the most common way to handle
| those individual non-conformities I came across in my
| career, there sure are others)
|
| - the above has to be defined in a dedicated process
| description, which itself is subject to regulatory
| approval
|
| - not following the above, even worse trying to mislead
| regulators and auditors about it, does amount to a
| criminal offense for the senior execs responsible /
| accountable, depending on circumstances (from what little
| I know, Boeing is _extremely_ close to this, if line
| workers cheat there isbnothing obe can do besides firing
| them, at Boeing the issues are far more serious, deeper
| and far reaching than some individual worker cutting
| corners so, it seems).
| sjburt wrote:
| This is exactly right, except that whenever there is a
| deviation there is a side channel conversation of "How
| can we fix this without needing to do all this paperwork,
| while still complying with the regulations?" between the
| factory floor, quality, and the engineers.
|
| For example perhaps a rule says "you need to do an
| inspection when a panel is removed" so the engineers and
| quality will get together and say "what if we just have
| the technician remove a couple screws on the panel and
| peek under it, then the panel hasn't technically been
| removed so we don't need to do the inspection". And then
| it turns out they remove all but one screw and twist the
| panel completely away so it's basically open but not
| "removed". And, it's all there in the work instructions,
| exactly what they did, but if anyone asks they can say
| "oh no, we didn't REMOVE the panel". And of course, the
| actual work instructions are only viewable in some 1970s
| green screen terminal or an all-caps printout thereof
| that comes in a multi-binder acceptance packet.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The process you decribe is what I would call non-comliant
| and a major finding in and of itself.
|
| Also, none of those instruction live in some opaque
| system. Don't know where got that idea from.
| doubloon wrote:
| seems like the solution is to make the paperwork of
| approval more efficient.
|
| this is kind of what github did for version control. it
| went from being this arcane chore to a fun little
| interface with colorful buttons.
| epolanski wrote:
| It's a bit complicated as there are things that are mandatory
| according to some agencies and some that are only recommended
| but not required.
|
| You would be surprised but the overwhelming majority of
| maintenance procedures and their bureaucracy is decided by
| airplane makers and airlines exactly because local
| authorities have different or no rules at all.
|
| Besides who can know better than Boeing how to maintain a
| Boeing airplane? Same for other companies.
|
| The issues arise when companies know that some procedure is
| required to be done and logged but shrug it off for whatever
| reason. Remains to be seen why.
| politelemon wrote:
| It could still "match" if it emerges that one of them is lying,
| and I can't tell which possibility is more terrifying.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Seems to be consistent. The NTSB report already corroborated
| most of this [1]. What they are trying to locate from my
| understanding is a record of the door being removed. Which the
| whistleblower already explained is a process that does not
| create an entry in the log:
|
| > A removal should be written in either case for QA to verify
| install, but as it turns out, someone (exactly who will be a
| fun question for investigators) decides that the door only
| needs to be opened, and no formal Removal is generated in CMES
| (the reason for which is unclear, and a major process failure).
| Therefore, in the official build records of the airplane, a
| pressure seal that cannot be accessed without opening the door
| (and thereby removing retaining bolts) _is documented as being
| replaced, but the door is never officially opened_ and thus no
| QA inspection is required.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MA063%20P...
| mellutussa wrote:
| Handy for Boeing if they can just stick it as a criminal act to
| some low level employees and case closed.
| bojan wrote:
| Handy for Boeing executives maybe, but the reputation damage is
| probably here to stay.
| hef19898 wrote:
| As I wrote elsewhere, under EASA rules high ranking people at
| an organization holding design and / or production
| organisation approvals, are personally responsible, and
| liable incl. criminal liability, to make sure their
| organisation works properly. I forget the exact term for this
| role so.
|
| Not sure about FAA rules, but I assume they are somewhat
| similar. So at the very least, those individuals, at Boeing
| and Spirit Aerospace, should be a tad worried now. By the
| way, senior means VP-levek and above, usually one for the
| design side (propably less relevant in the door plug
| question), one on production side ( _they_ should be
| worried), one each for design and production quality (same as
| above, the production quality oeople should be worried a lot)
| as well as one for supply chain and other functiobs with less
| responsibilities (the supply chain people are imolicated in
| this door plug thing as).
|
| Personally, I don't see how the FAA can just let this slip,
| their relationship with international partbers and their
| reputation is already damaged by the 737 MAX, so they have to
| do _something_ about it.
| jajko wrote:
| Why would currently anybody globally trust FAA? Clearly
| regulatory capture has happened, its not 1 or 2 isolated
| cases at this point.
|
| Trust is something thats hard earned and easily lost, they
| already went through both so if FAA wants to come back they
| have some serious effort on their shoulders in upcoming
| decade at least.
|
| And slapping Boeing and those responsible so hard that wall
| will give them another is mandatory first step since this
| theatre is played out for literally everybody in the world,
| everybody is watching.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You are pinting to a very serious issue. Up until the 737
| MAX, if someone or something had FAA or EASA
| certification, getting the other one was more or less
| just a formality. And this helped everyone _a lot_ , and
| in fact made things saver as the engineering was less,
| constraint, limited, bothered by regulation (no idea how
| to phrase this...), because they only had to worry deeply
| about either FAA or EASA requirements. The 737 MAX did
| put a dent in this, and that was and is a problem.
|
| And everyone knows this, besides Boeing it seems, which
| is the reason why I am cautiosly optimistic about the
| investogations.
| stavros wrote:
| How did it put a dent in this? Is it not certified by one
| of the two agencies?
| hef19898 wrote:
| It is certified by both, with EASA nasically accepting
| the FAA certication at face value (oversimplified a bit).
| That means trusting the other agency. It was this trust
| that was hurt by the initial B737 MAX scandle and the
| handling of it by both, Boeing and the FAA.
| stavros wrote:
| Ah, I see, thanks. So the FAA cut corners when
| certifying?
|
| I guess trust only works when the other agency is up to
| the same standards as you, but then "certified by the FAA
| _and_ the EASA " only really means "certified by one of
| the two".
| hef19898 wrote:
| No, the FAA didn't cut corners, Boeing did. The FAA did a
| bad job catching it.
|
| And being certified by both means that orgs and aircraft
| are certified by both. Decades of cooperation and
| alignment of regulations and requirements mean that the
| sevond certification is covering the delta between both,
| believing the common stuff to be properly cerified by the
| other regulator. _That_ is where the FAA lost trust.
|
| Hence my believe the FAA will not show much liniency to
| Boeing this time.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| The last fatal accident in a commerical airliner in the
| US was in 2009.
|
| We have to zoom out here, the FAA are not dropping the
| ball.
| jen20 wrote:
| Regardless of whether flying is safer or not, the
| citation is incorrect: a passenger on Southwest Airlines
| Flight 1380 died in 2018 following a contained engine
| failure.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Fair point, although since I said "in a commercial
| airliner" and the passenger was partially ejected before
| dying I might be technically correct.
| jen20 wrote:
| Ah, well by those criteria alone, PenAir 3296 in 2019
| would probably win - a passenger died inside the plane
| after a runway excursion.
| lucianbr wrote:
| You think the crashes of the two 737 MAX being outside of
| the US was not luck, but determined at least in part by
| the FAA? Would you care to explain how you came to this
| conclusion, as I really, _really_ don 't see it...
| jajko wrote:
| His comments point to borderline racist statements from
| boeing early in the saga where they tried to blame this
| all on incompetence of the Ethiopian/other pilots,
| maintenance crew and so on.
|
| To some folks human lives don't have the same value but
| it depends highly on passport, as long as stuff happens
| outside of their border all is fine (although in this
| case nothing is since this affects everybody everywhere).
| I wouldn't expect such a comment here in 2024 but here we
| are.
| georgeplusplus wrote:
| >>> Not sure about FAA rules, but I assume they are
| somewhat similar. So at the very least, those individuals,
| at Boeing and Spirit Aerospace, should be a tad worried
| now.
|
| It's funny to see comments like. You think this isn't just
| a dog and pony show? They don't give a damn. They will
| sleep just fine. Nothing will happen because the government
| is in bed with these folks and they don't implicate their
| own and the sooner you understand that the less it shocks
| you when nothing happens.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not sure I can actually agree with that, at least in such
| broad strokes.
|
| And no, I _know_ that it is not just a dog and pony show.
| "It" is the reason air travel is as safe as it is today,
| and that is way saver than 20 or 30 years ago, despite
| whatever Boeing did with the 737 MAX.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >way saver than 20 or 30 years ago
|
| Is it?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yes, it is. And 20-30 years ago it was saver than, say,
| 50 years ago. Like in medcine, people don't always see
| those incrementle improvements over time.
| chx wrote:
| I would've agreed with you five or so years ago but
| https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/305868 is more than
| an accident, you begin to wonder what's going on. There
| are staff shortages everywhere, why not with pilots? Are
| they as rested and trained as they ought to be? Together
| with the plane safety issues surfacing like an army of
| skeletons falling out of an infinite closet, I am not so
| sure we are on the same track as we were before.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yes, the tendency is not great. Besides the Boeing
| issues, there is a tendency in pilot training and flight
| operations I don't like, e.g. more flight hours, tough
| shift planning, training to be paid for the junior
| pilots. That being said, I'm on the production / design /
| maintenance side of things, and not operations, so my
| opinion on that is just that, an opinion.
| michaelje wrote:
| Not sure medicine is the best example given the same
| profit seeking culture is driving decisions where care
| takes a back seat
| ethanbond wrote:
| Comments like this just propagate a public opinion of
| indifference which really does make it harder for the
| government to hold people responsible. There obviously
| have been numerous cases of the govt stepping in
| effectively on such malfeasance and the smart thing to do
| is to demand that this becomes one of those cases. Not
| "I'm so smart I see through the bullshit so I expect (and
| therefore am encouraging) nothing to happen."
| Zigurd wrote:
| Comments like that one and "blame DEI" "blame unions"
| "blame inflation" "blame FAA" etc. are a weird
| conversation killing pattern.
| chmod775 wrote:
| >Nothing will happen because the government is in bed
| with these folks and they don't implicate their own
|
| Even if they're bed with each other, the people in
| government are sitting at an infinitely longer lever.
| They'll throw the Boeing folks under the bus as soon as
| it is politically expedient and replace them with a
| different set of cronies.
| nocsi wrote:
| All the issues are systemic, so it can't be the responsibility
| of some low-level employees. But it is kind of curious that
| Boeing suddenly wants to buy Spirit Aerosystems.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The curious things is that they divested Spirit Aerosystems
| in the first place, in a financial engineering move that
| seemed to serve no business purpose besides a PE pump and
| dump.
| hef19898 wrote:
| It kind ofnmade sense so: Tier one aerostructure suppliers
| are doing the easiest work, not like avionics and engine
| OEMs. By having those activities in-house, you have a cost
| center. Having that as a third-party turns it into a profit
| center. Also, a third party can theoretically work for
| other customers. Airbus did the same thing.
|
| In practice so, there are only two aircraft OEMs. Hence
| those structure tier ones are kind of screwed. Automotive
| tier ones have much more choice regarding customers.
| Sakos wrote:
| It only makes sense if your only metric is cost. There
| are a lot of reasons why Airbus owns the subsidiaries who
| do Spirit's type of work for Airbus (such as the
| airframe). Airbus does not do the same thing as Boeing.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, Airbus is a customer of Spirit Aerospace. And
| Premium Aerotec, well, they were very, very close to spin
| it out completely. Bavk the day, it was part of what
| today is Defence and Space. And Premium Aerotec is
| _subsiediary_ of Airbus, it is not part of any of its
| divisions. So, somewhere between Spirit Aerospace and and
| being in-house.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Is airbus a customer for anything other than the A220? I
| haven't been able to figure this out.
| hef19898 wrote:
| No idea. When it comes to bad quality controls and
| processes, the model doesn't matter much so. Also, I have
| no idea how Airbusbis surveilling and working with Spirit
| Aerospace compared to Boeing.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| We might get the answers soon. If Boeing really wants to
| buy Spirit we might see Airbus' exposure. That said, it
| wouldn't be unheard them building for each other. Pretty
| sure Airbus manufactured parts for Boeing and vice versa
| in the past.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Boeing spun off Spirit Aerosystems to create the appearance
| of better RONA,, fragment their unionized workforce, and
| substitute contract demands for price and quality for
| engineering.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Right, but it is nebulous as to who to pin it on. You can't
| arrest every employee of Boeing. "The buck stops here" won't
| work, their lawyers are too good. So the answer isn't
| criminality, the answer is huge fines, in terms of 5% plus of
| annual revenue and oversight.
| parpfish wrote:
| sometimes I wonder if org charts are engineered to make sure
| misdeeds are attributed to diffuse cultural/systemic problems
| that can't be prosecuted:
|
| - you can't blame the low level employees inhabiting the
| system be their powerless to change it
|
| - the CEOs are hoping that they've installed enough layers of
| middle management that they can claim plausible deniability
| about any on the ground problems (and ignore that their job
| is to be the manager-of-managers)
| izacus wrote:
| In previous topic, people told me that they would never want to
| live in a place that expects criminal liability from CEOs and
| executives in companies.
|
| That's only for petty criminals, murderers and people who can't
| pay bills.
| roenxi wrote:
| Is it more important to dole out punishments or to get the
| best result? Because the best result isn't going to be from
| draconian punishments for CEOs.
|
| The strongest irony of what I suspect you are suggesting is
| that the #1 lesson of high-performance safety cultures is a
| blameless attitude to accidents. Criminal liabilities for the
| CEO ... are better than criminal liabilities for lower level
| employees. But still not the path to the highest levels of
| safety.
| chgs wrote:
| The Us penal system is about punishment, not rehabilitation
| or even deterrence.
| User23 wrote:
| I assume you're not being intentionally dishonest, but
| have instead been taken in by propaganda, so allow me to
| remind you that the primary purpose and effect of
| incarceration is preventing reoffending. Fortunately a
| tiny minority commits the vast majority of violent
| crimes[1], so considerable reduction can be achieved by
| containing those criminals' ability to commit crimes.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/
| junon wrote:
| Not sure which USA you're living in but what you're
| saying does not match reality. I've had a lot of friends
| and family in and out of jail and it's hell, at least in
| the US.
| throwaway323929 wrote:
| Hell is living in a place where you have a 1 in 70 chance
| of being a victim of a violent crime per year, and being
| gaslit by extremely co-dependent people into having more
| empathy for narcissist sociopaths than their traumatized
| innocent victims.
|
| If people don't want to do serious jail time they
| shouldn't do serious crimes, the contract couldn't
| possibly be more simple. The purpose of incarceration
| isn't to coddle murderers, it's great if they change
| their life but ultimately it's to extract murderers from
| society so decent people can live peaceful and successful
| lives and anything else beyond that is ancillary.
| junon wrote:
| I think you have a very different view of reality that
| we'll go nowhere with in conversation.
| User23 wrote:
| Once you broke out the DARVO that became quite obvious.
| junon wrote:
| The what now?
| sandspar wrote:
| It would be nice if society could develop some kind of
| technique to use in these cases of "we live in different
| realities". It sucks to have to write a guy off just
| because he lives in a different filter bubble than you
| do, yet I currently don't see any other option. And it
| seems like an issue that's growing in size.
| User23 wrote:
| Especially when the other guy "lives in a reality" where
| he thinks violently victimizing you is fine. It's almost
| as if we need some way to separate from such people.
| junon wrote:
| Where on earth did I ever say such a thing? Please cite
| yourself :)
| afthonos wrote:
| And how is that strategy working out? Because lots and
| lots of countries have more humane justice systems _and_
| are safer. But I guess throwing more people in jail than
| the Soviet Union had in gulags can't fail, only we can
| fail at throwing more people in jail.
| miracle2k wrote:
| > The purpose of incarceration isn't to coddle murderers,
|
| Unfortunatly in the real world your criminal justice
| ethics will have to accommodate crimes that are not
| murder, so you might need to think about some prisoners
| eventually getting released, who might then go on and do
| more criming.
|
| > it's great if they change their life but ultimately
| it's to extract murderers from society
|
| In that case, there is no need to make prisons
| particularly cruel. Cost can be debated, but surely as a
| society, we can put a value on humaneness. Even if not,
| if say I, a billionaire, wanted prisoners eat caviar
| every night and am willing to fund it, surely this should
| be allowed.
| User23 wrote:
| It's not really hard to understand why a society might
| not want its billionaires creating material incentives to
| reward criminals.
| anon25783 wrote:
| This is true and especially apparent to those who have
| suffered it.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Blameless culture is about well-intentioned people, not
| people actively trying to sabotage processes for money.
|
| If the mechanic was reselling the real parts on eBay and
| instead using shoddy parts, everyone would agree on
| criminal liability.
|
| If the CEO and leadership are also cutting corners and
| destroying a safety culture for money, and endangering the
| public, that is also criminal.
| roenxi wrote:
| But the difference there is that the mechanic is selling
| things that aren't his. The CEO & friends are making
| decisions that are their within their remit to make, they
| just made poor decisions.
|
| People have been making similar arguments since the
| development of the limited liability company. It turns
| out that limiting liability is a far better system than
| the alternative for getting good things done.
|
| We've already got a problem where all the manufacturing
| is heading to Asia. Criminal penalties hanging over the
| heads of CEOs of manufacturing companies will not help
| the situation.
| EasyMark wrote:
| CEOs of these safety critical companies are selling lives
| in return for profits, and I'm not being hyperbolic.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| The limited liability is for financial risks.
|
| Endangering the health of the public like for example
| dumping toxic waste or destroying a safety culture are
| criminal.
|
| If Boeing decided to build a 797 story that was even
| bigger than the Airbus 380 and lost a lot of money, then
| limited liability would kick in. However, to deliberately
| cut safety culture and endanger the public is criminal.
| roenxi wrote:
| 1. You're talking about a model that incentivises
| shareholders (with limited liability) to appoint
| incompetent CEOs who then take the fall for over-cutting
| safety standards. That isn't the best approach to safety
| - in fact, it would slightly reward the people most
| responsible for this situation because some of the
| liability would fall on the CEO rather than on profits.
|
| That is neither fair nor helpful. Hit the company with a
| huge fine then let the board decide if the CEO stays or
| goes - that is how it is traditionally done and it is an
| effective model for getting results.
|
| 2. Deliberately changing a culture isn't criminal; that
| is something CEOs are expected to do sometimes. It is
| equivalent to saying a developer should be liable if they
| do an unnecessary refactor and it makes the code worse
| for a customer.
|
| 3.
|
| > and endanger the public is criminal.
|
| You say this but we allow car manufacturers to operate.
| Cars manufacturers have done more damage to people I know
| than Boeing could hope to. The focus on Boeing is
| hysterical.
| Zigurd wrote:
| You are assuming the same people blaming C-suite execs at
| Boeing would not blame the same people who OK'ed high
| grilles on pickup trucks that caused an increase in
| pedestrian deaths. That might be a bad assumption. "But
| there's no specific law," and "but consumer choice" don't
| cut it.
|
| Change the incentives, change the targets of incentives,
| change the results.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| > It turns out that limiting liability is a far better
| system
|
| It's hilarious how gung-ho free market cheerleaders are
| about systematic responsibility and accountability and
| skin-in-the-game decision making... right up until the
| millisecond that involves something other than rich
| people getting paid for being rich, and then it's
| bailouts this and limited liability that.
| FredPret wrote:
| Limited liability means the owners can't lose more than
| they invest _if the venture fails_.
|
| It works well because it encourages investors to take
| risks and fund new ventures.
|
| It doesn't give them immunity to commit criminal acts,
| and therefore it doesn't protect the officers they
| appoint either (like the CEO).
|
| If the CEO knowingly makes criminal decisions, he can
| absolutely be prosecuted.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| A blameless culture needs to take into account bad
| actors. You might add more processes for part sovereignty
| for example. This is what you rely on for safety.
|
| In addition yeah also prosecute criminals. But that
| doesn't stop crime. See "war on drugs" for example.
| MrJohz wrote:
| I think having a blameless culture is a separate issue.
|
| Let's say Bob gets a job in a Boeing factory and on every
| plane he works on, he deliberately hides a bunch of broken
| components in the system, thereby causing the planes to
| fall out of the sky. We can talk blamelessly about how we
| can avoid every hiring someone like Bob again, or taking
| precautions against malicious employees, but Bob himself
| has to accept the criminal liabilities that come with the
| choices he made: his decisions caused people to die.
|
| But what happens when Bob instead installs himself as the
| CEO, and deliberately makes choices that prioritise revenue
| and stock prices over safety, knowing full well the risks
| that he is forcing on people, and that his planes in some
| cases fundamentally don't work? From a blameless culture
| perspective, we again need to figure out how we can avoid
| hitting another Bob and having these mistakes happen again,
| but surely we also have to recognise that our CEO actively,
| and in some sense maliciously, made decisions that caused
| people to die?
|
| In this case, thankfully (and ultimately lucky) nobody has
| died - although previous incidents have not had such good
| outcomes. But we still need to recognise that this culture
| came from decisions made at the top of the organisation. I
| fully support a blameless culture that doesn't punish
| people for making mistakes and tries to fix the long-term,
| fundamental issues rather than find a scapegoat for each
| incident. But this goes beyond simply making mistakes,
| especially when one remembers the pattern of behaviour
| within the Boeing organisation that has caused several
| incidents like this.
|
| I picked the CEO as an example because it's a visible role,
| although in this case I believe several CEOs have overseen
| the decision making that has lead to these incidents. I am
| not saying that the CEO specifically is at fault here. But
| wilful decisions have absolutely been made that have put us
| in this situation, and I think it is absolutely right that
| if you make decisions that ultimately lead to potential
| injury and death, you need to suffer the consequences of
| those decisions. And for that, we have a criminal justice
| system.
| roenxi wrote:
| Someone has to make the final call on how much money to
| spend on making planes safe. The spend can't be $infinite
| and will be more than $1.
|
| We can quibble with the amount that got picked. It turns
| out in this case the amount spent was too low. But it is
| unreasonable to talk about "... deliberately makes
| choices that prioritise revenue and stock prices over
| safety ...". At some point the call has to be made that
| the planes being built are safe enough, and that from
| there start to focus on profits. These companies have to
| produce more value than they consume (which is what
| "profits" represents at the macro level) otherwise there
| isn't any point producing.
|
| In this case the call was made poorly, but the call had
| to be made. Holding the call maker personally responsible
| isn't the path to more successful outcomes in the future.
| The path that has been working quite well for around 2
| centuries is to hold the company responsible for what the
| company did. If we start penalising CEOs for trying to
| build planes profitably, then it is possible that the
| industry will collapse. There is no justification here to
| hold people personally liable. It is enough to hit Boeing
| with an appropriate fine.
| laserlight wrote:
| > But it is unreasonable to talk about "... deliberately
| makes choices that prioritise revenue and stock prices
| over safety ..."
|
| I can't see how that is unreasonable. Nobody here is
| arguing that Boeing officials should be held criminally
| liable because they didn't invest enough money into
| safety. The liability is because they are _blatantly_
| disregarding safety. They invented MCAS and didn 't let
| pilots know about it. One plane crashes and they don't
| care. Second plane crashes and they don't care. For
| years, stupid things keep happening and they still don't
| care.
|
| By your logic, a psychopath CEO may deliberately
| undermine safety culture to earn more profits and still
| won't be held responsible, because it's "limited
| liability". Limited liability means that financial
| liability is limited, not criminal one.
| roenxi wrote:
| > By your logic, a psychopath CEO may deliberately
| undermine safety culture to earn more profits and still
| won't be held responsible, because it's "limited
| liability".
|
| Yep. This is how it is generally done. Shareholder's in
| Boeing are literally responsible for installing "a
| psycopath CEO" who undermined safety and they aren't
| liable. I see little difference between that and
| extending the protection to the CEO as well. It gets
| better results because we don't chase risk-averse people
| out of the CEO position. In this situation, we WANT the
| most risk-averse people we can find in the CEO seat of
| the airline manufacturers. They won't take it if the
| response to a crisis is making the position more risky.
|
| There is an argument that the CEO should be liable if it
| leads to more productive results. But I don't see why
| that would be true - it is more effective to adjust the
| profitability of the company when things go wrong and let
| the incentives do the rest. The default position is that
| doing your job poorly is not criminal.
|
| Also; most CEOs are psycopaths. You don't need to include
| it as an adjective. It is built in to the title.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Maybe it should be okay to punish the decision makers
| when they decide to go against the recommendation of
| engineers for profit and it leads to hundreds of dead
| people. If not prison maybe they should be stripped of
| all their wealth rather than get a golden parachute as
| that's the worst outcome they have today.
| bostik wrote:
| When you consistently make decisions that knowingly
| prioritise profit over product safety[0], you have
| crossed the line between financial prudence and corporate
| manslaughter.
|
| 0: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BA/boeing/gr
| oss-pr...
| FredPret wrote:
| Executives set cultural standards as well as budgets
| sgarland wrote:
| > draconian punishments for CEOs
|
| How is expecting the person who is responsible for the
| outcome of the company to be _responsible_ draconian?
|
| If I kill someone, I am responsible. If I direct someone
| else to kill someone, we're both responsible to different
| degrees. If I create an elaborate structure wherein the
| lower levels are inculcated that killing people is just
| part of the job, the responsibility starts dramatically
| shifting upwards.
| randomname93857 wrote:
| >>Because the best result isn't going to be from draconian
| punishments for CEOs.
|
| Why do you bring "draconian" punishment? Is punishment
| always draconian? Are the best results observed in places
| where crimes are not punished? Could you provide references
| to research that confirms this? Or your worries that
| punishments should not apply to CEOs?
| bmitc wrote:
| > Is it more important to dole out punishments or to get
| the best result? Because the best result isn't going to be
| from draconian punishments for CEOs.
|
| Is that same logic applied to the lower class? Or is this
| basically admitting that if you are rich enough and bury
| your crimes and negligence behind enough paperwork and
| complexity, that you are no longer culpable?
|
| I get your point that applying hard rules will encourage
| people to escape them, but there needs to be _some_
| framework opposed to the current anything goes and we might
| fine you at worst.
| frognumber wrote:
| I (personally) think the best result does involve criminal
| liabilities for CEOs. That's having seen this same story
| play out at many organizations.
|
| However, criminal liability in itself won't solve it.
| Capitalism forces this kind of behavior; it's the natural
| trend for any company. The Dictator's Handbook describes it
| well.
|
| What's needed is what's been done in every other industry:
| Regulation which changes incentive structures. Raw
| capitalism forces meat packing plants to pack ground rats
| in with your ground beef, quack medicines, and all sorts of
| other issues. The regulatory solution needs to have short-
| term economic consequences of some kind for doing the wrong
| thing. There are many of those, including:
|
| 1) Require insurance, and let the market sort it out. If
| the settlements and fees came from an insurance company
| rather than Boeing, the insurance company could set rules
| and inspections as it believed adequate to turn a profit.
|
| 2) Have high standards and regular inspections
|
| 3) Major changes to both capitalism and corporate
| governance. We have the best system we've thought of so
| far, but we sort of stopped thinking about new systems
| 50-100 years ago (fascism and communism were the last major
| attempts, and didn't turn out too well)
|
| 4) Completely overhaul our infrastructure for transparency.
| This could include whistleblower protections, as well as
| FOIA-like schemes, where an academic can look at what
| Boeing is doing.
|
| It's worth noting this is a quasi-monopoly / duopoly
| situation, so market systems tend to work worse than most
| places.
|
| But yes, it's a problem that criminal consequences are for
| poor people or people lower down the rungs. People at the
| top should go to prison too if they do something bad, with
| the same quality legal process as poor people.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > people told me that they would never want to live in a
| place
|
| Fine. I'll help them pack their bags, and move furniture into
| the moving truck.
| mellutussa wrote:
| I have the truck on standby.
| sandspar wrote:
| People seem to have an easier time forgiving crimes if
| they're highly abstracted. I'm not sure if this is apocryphal
| but apparently drone pilots are less likely than other
| soldiers to feel extreme guilt about killing people. Prince
| Harry flew a helicopter in action and compared it to a video
| game, likely a PR recruiting statement but revealing
| nonetheless. I'm not a soldier so am speaking out of turn and
| may be completely off base.
| izacus wrote:
| IIRC I read some similar research as well - not only about
| drones, but also in general that most casualties are made
| by "fire and kill" weapons like artilery and air power
| mostly due to how soldiers tend to avoid killing other
| people unless prepared psychologically.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I would love for an impossible outcome from this that MBAs are
| deemed illegal. Can anyone honestly point to an example of
| where an MBA has had a positive long term effect by any of
| their decisions?
| ht85 wrote:
| > honestly point to an example
|
| No but I can come up with a KPI that does.
| mellutussa wrote:
| We need a negative KPI for parts that fall off and people
| that die due to negligent shortcuts.
| sylware wrote:
| I agree with the US administration. Something is fishy in Boeing,
| or the wrong people are being employed there.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| That would be the McDonnell/Douglas merger.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That would be the starting point, by now it looks like an
| endemic issue at Boeing.
| bell-cot wrote:
| A merger done at the behest of the US Govt., if I recall...
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| So the gov who approved the merger should go to jail?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Almost 30 years after the fact? I don't think so.
| sandspar wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if we get to this level of legal
| theatricality at some point.
|
| > In 897, the 9-month-old corpse of the late Pope
| Formosus stood trial by the reigning pontiff, Stephen
| VII. Stephen VII convicted Formosus, sentenced the
| cadaveric Pope to have three fingers of his right hand
| amputated and then had him buried in a common grave.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
| peteradio wrote:
| Checkmate Clintons
| hef19898 wrote:
| The proof is in Hilary's emails, I am sure. Either that,
| or on Hunter's laptop. Maybe Biden shouod be impeached
| over that, what do you think?
| peteradio wrote:
| > what do you think?
|
| Satire mismatch.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Hah, I successfully identified sarcasm on the internet
| (ok, I was like 80% sure, 60%... anyway above 50%)!
| hanniabu wrote:
| > or the wrong people are being employed there
|
| Yeah, the C-suite execs running the show
| gigatexal wrote:
| Here's hoping they pay for their cost-cutting crimes (yeah I know
| it's not a crime per se but the efforts are putting people at
| undue risk, allegedly). And that it's followed up by a civil
| case. And that the criminal case causes the board and management
| to change and the civil case somehow makes workers and victims
| whole.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _civil case somehow makes workers and victims whole_
|
| If they're found criminally liable, the most likely outcome is
| bankruptcy. Victims (airlines) would have a claim. Workers,
| their unpaid wages. Whatever comes out of bankruptcy will
| likely need some public support; even then, it's hard to
| imagine we don't see layoffs.
| trevoragilbert wrote:
| Where do you get "the most likely outcome is bankruptcy" and
| not say, a $5b fine and something akin to a consent decree?
| Totally exaggerating the likely consequences.
| delfinom wrote:
| $5b fine paid by taxpayers through the next air force
| contract they get with no competition.
| jonplackett wrote:
| It's quite mad isn't it. Can you imagine running a company that
| makes aeroplanes and not going to sleep each night panicking
| about all the lives you're ferrying around up in the sky?
|
| It turns out there is a whole company of executives who are so
| not-worried about it that they'll continuously cut budgets and
| decrease the time available to make those planes until multiple
| planes fall out the sky. And even then are still not really that
| worried about safety.
| junon wrote:
| Yep.
|
| "We don't need to brief anyone on the technicals of our plane,
| we know better and it's great for stock prices to mislead
| buyers into thinking it's just a New and Improved model of the
| same plane flyable in the exact same way!"
|
| It's criminal. They should be criminally charged. I hope this
| goes through, and I hope prosecutors sweep up all of the floor
| workers who have already stated they would never fly in the
| newer planes.
| bambax wrote:
| The reason they're not worried is because in the worst case,
| they will get millions of dollars of severance payment, instead
| of jail time. I'm sure there are sound legal and even economic
| reasons behind this, but it's still unacceptable and
| infuriating.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| In my experience, this is yet more evidence of the quite
| unethical culture that has come to dominate executives in the
| last 4-5 decades across many industries. So many of them fail
| upwards by mindlessly focusing on shareholder value and cost-
| cutting for short term gains and the long term detriment of
| products and consumers under their watch. The way that safety
| and the health of customers and the general public is
| consistently ignored or thrown under the bus by executives in
| the name of cost-cutting and shareholder value, often against
| the explicit recommendations of employees, has become so common
| that I can't help but think there is something seriously wrong
| in the "education" (MBAs are more like finishing schools for
| corporate climbers) and hiring of these executives. We've
| incentivized ghouls to take over the reins who spend their days
| a bubbled class that have no need to, and can afford through
| absurd wealth to not, interact with or see the consequences of
| their asinine and dangerous decisions.
| rapind wrote:
| It's a symptom of decades of gutting regulations.
|
| Next time you hear corp talk about how regulations make x
| unaffordable, look for the real incentives and benefactors of
| gutting that regulation.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| I think it's even broader than that. An entire corporate
| philosophy has arisen that insists that mindlessly
| searching for profits and shareholder value over everything
| else will actually be _better for everyone_ , employees and
| public included. This insulates them from criticism by
| insinuating that maximizing profits and shareholder value
| is a moral imperative - if you're against them then you're
| against the mutual uplifting of everyone through corporate
| benevolence. It turns out, however, that it's really just
| better for the execs, who conveniently just so happen to
| also have their compensation tied to the share price.
| wredue wrote:
| Incidentally, never believe tales of "we can self
| regulate!" If they had any intention of self regulating,
| they wouldn't be spending billions to get rid of
| regulation.
| black6 wrote:
| It's not just the safety and health of customers and the
| public that the modern executives don't seem to care about. I
| work in the CPI and process/employee safety has started to
| take a back seat to DEI and environmental concerns (to be
| sure, fair hiring practices and environmental stewardship are
| great goals to have, but not to the detriment of a safe
| workplace.)
|
| Stock buybacks take precedence over spending on safety
| improvements, and reduction in working capital (finished
| product) to appease the bean counters results in missed sales
| when the inevitable process upset occurs and there is no
| surge capacity.
| engcoach wrote:
| > We've incentivized ghouls to take over the reins who spend
| their days a bubbled class that have no need to, and can
| afford through absurd wealth to not, interact with or see the
| consequences of their asinine and dangerous decisions
|
| Nice prose, and an astute point
| ajross wrote:
| > Can you imagine running a company that makes aeroplanes and
| not going to sleep each night panicking about all the lives
| you're ferrying around up in the sky?
|
| I dunno. I think that's a little melodramatic. There are a
| _lot_ of activities in the world with dangerous failure modes,
| and flying is pretty far down the list in terms of impact. You
| could make the same argument about chemical engineers designing
| pesticide plants, insulin pump manufacturers, hell even folks
| doing car suspensions are probably responsible for more deaths
| than Boeing.
|
| People do their jobs, and if the impact is low they'll live
| with it. Clearly Boeing's leadership _thought_ they were doing
| OK. And even in hindsight they... kinda were? The MAX is the
| most dangerous airliner in decades, maybe a half century. But I
| 'd still fly on it.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| > Can you imagine running a company that makes aeroplanes and
| not going to sleep each night panicking about all the lives
| you're ferrying around up in the sky?
|
| For my entire life, the most pervasive theme in executive
| leadership is that the _only_ responsibility of a company is to
| make money for its shareholders.
|
| Boeing may reach a point where it has to stop killing
| passengers, but dead passengers aren't an issue at all until it
| creates a major threat to their bottom line.
|
| If you think it shouldn't take many downed planes before that
| happens, then given the situation, the real question is why it
| hasn't threatened their business enough yet.
| yadaeno wrote:
| They're too big to fail. When that's the case punishing
| executives is the only way you can have accountability.
|
| The alternative--fining the company into the bankruptcy and
| letting the courts restructure the company has too many
| downsides for the shareholders.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Boeing's stock was cut in half by the MAX crashes, and has
| not recovered.
| ysofunny wrote:
| they've offshored all safety corncerns to an insurance
| corporation
|
| /joking, but I mean.... it doesn't sound as far fetched as it
| should
| actuallyquiteso wrote:
| Actually this is how it's supposed to work. Because the focus
| is on capital the feedback loop that reigns them in happens too
| late to penalize and bring change. Gov really needs to create a
| mechanism where the feedback loop happens before lives are
| affected in critical industries. We will see if they get the
| point.
| LASR wrote:
| I'm about to fly on a Max-8 airplane in the next 2 hours. I can't
| help but be very nervous about the fact that we are still unclear
| on what exactly happened.
|
| This feels very much like the MCAS situation. They spun their
| wheels for months after the initial crash. And another tragic
| crashed happened due to the same issue.
|
| Come on. Someone somewhere at Boeing knows exactly what happened.
| Even if they don't want to reveal this, it's not even clear to me
| if they now have better QC procedures to catch these kinds of
| issues.
| rainsford wrote:
| > Come on. Someone somewhere at Boeing knows exactly what
| happened.
|
| I don't think that's true for any of the issues, or airline
| accidents in general. Remember ultimately we're still talking
| about very rare events that almost always involve a number of
| different factors lining up in just the right way.
|
| Even the MAX crashes were 2 out of how many thousands of MCAS
| equipped flights with no issues and those crashes also required
| other things to go wrong. It's easy to say MCAS was the obvious
| cause in retrospect, but it's much less clear it should have
| been easy to predict that outcome before any investigations
| were done regardless of how much inside knowledge one had.
|
| This is not at all to excuse the causes, but there is a reason
| crash investigations take time. Demanding immediate
| explanations is just asking for wrong conclusions to be reached
| in the name of expediency. In fact taking the time to fully
| investigate probably produces better accountability in the long
| run because it can uncover more subtle but serious problems.
| wepple wrote:
| Along with the very low actual incident rate, grandparent
| comment also suggests a certain degree of functional
| organizational coherence which is often wildly missing at
| large organizations
|
| If you ask 50 people at Boeing what happened, you may receive
| 50 very different answers
| wepple wrote:
| To clarify: I too am not excusing Boeing and think they're
| likely a hot trash mess that deserves to have C-levels lose
| their heads with no golden parachute (or maybe their
| punishment should be a Boeing-produced parachute)
| jweriewj wrote:
| Kayak.com gives you the option to sort and filter plane types!
| It's now one of their most popular features. Lots of people are
| happy to filter out 737-MAX planes and pay more for other
| flights.
| xeromal wrote:
| The problem is that your ticket does not guarantee a plane
| model so it can change at any moment
| hef19898 wrote:
| But it allows Kayak to increase sales, playing of peoples
| fears.
| readyman wrote:
| Capitalism, baby.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| Or, it allows consumers to make better informed
| decisions?
|
| The United app and website also show equipment type under
| the "details" expansion. You can also filter searches by
| equipment type. Yes, it can change but it's correct the
| vast majority of the time.
| serf wrote:
| god forbid Boeing sees a market reaction that is tied to
| consumers rather than investors when their shoddy
| worksmanship fails in a catastrophic manner, right?
| willdr wrote:
| How does it affect Boeing? I suppose in terms of service
| contracts and the like, but haven't the airlines bought
| the planes already?
| downrightmike wrote:
| Yes, but they have to compensate you if less than 72 hours
| change, and you can decline and get a refund.
| sandspar wrote:
| I know what you mean. I had a flight recently and didn't look
| at the plane before I booked it. Then woke up that night,
| "Shit, is it a Max-8?"
|
| If it makes you feel any better, as with all commercial
| airplanes, even a Max-8 is far safer than driving your car to
| get groceries.
|
| * Just saw that your comment is 2 hours old and you said your
| flight is in 2 hours. Hope you're enjoying your flight! See you
| when you land!
| ponector wrote:
| 737 is not a plane which can be enjoyed to fly. More like a
| fully booked intercity bus. Especially Ryanair is cheap on
| everything.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I'm about to fly on a Max-8 airplane in the next 2 hours. I
| can't help but be very nervous about the fact that we are still
| unclear on what exactly happened.
|
| Nobody has been hurt. Max-8s fly probably (tens of thousands?)
| of routes a day.
| lsllc wrote:
| Except for the 346 people who died in two MAX-8 crashes: Lion
| Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines
| Flight 302 on March 10, 2019.
|
| FWIW, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was a MAX-9.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Statistically, we agree. :)
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| No, you don't.
|
| Statistically, this airplane is drastically more likely
| to kill you than the average plane.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| You can both be correct that almost nobody gets killed by
| these airplanes, but still a lot more people than the
| average plane.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| The logic used by people who don't wear seatbelts to
| justify adding micromorts by habit.
| forthac wrote:
| Hysteresis is a bitch.
| cco wrote:
| > I can't help but be very nervous about the fact that we are
| still unclear on what exactly happened.
|
| It seems pretty clear from their initial report (which largely
| corroborates the whistleblower a few months ago), no?
|
| The bolts were not reinstalled after they were removed to
| perform a QA fix.
|
| If you mean beyond that, why weren't the bolts reinstalled,
| nothing too shocking there. The system of record between Boeing
| and their subcontractors, as well as their procedures to pass
| off work between companies and crews, is not sufficient to
| prevent lapses in workmanship like this.
|
| The good news is, all of these door plug bolts are confirmed to
| be properly installed ;) They just grounded them all to do
| that. Now...what _other_ bolts are missing, well that's
| anybody's guess.
| skip_region wrote:
| Interesting article about the espoused cultural signaling by
| Boeing's C-Suite: https://www.talentcanary.com/2024/02/unpacking-
| boeings-cultu...
| amluto wrote:
| This article, along with other articles I've seen about this,
| talk about the door plug being "opened". This brings to mind an
| interesting comment from a few days ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39624602
|
| You can "open" and "close" a door without documenting it. If you
| "remove" a piece of an airplane, you document it.
|
| So perhaps a part of Boeing's error is that they think about
| "opening" a door plug but they did not design it such that it
| could be safely "opened" and "closed" without special care.
|
| As I understand it, the door plug is indeed an awkward in-the-
| middle design in that you can remove four bolts and do something
| resembling "opening" it without fully removing it. But if you
| open a _door_ , the plane has better alert the pilots if you try
| to fly the plane without properly closing the door, and the plug
| has no such feature.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| In a properly functioning quality and safety management system,
| there's no awkward in-the-middle. The "open door plug"
| procedure is a planned part of the construction, inspection and
| maintenance of the airplane. And even if there was a doubt, the
| thing to do in that case is stop and document the doubt, and
| then document the process of discussion of the doubt, and then
| document the decision, including whatever change to the quality
| system may be needed to avoid this doubt arising the next time.
|
| The problem here is not that Boeing does not know how to run
| both the original quality system and the system to modify it if
| necessary. The problem is the quality culture that puts
| "implementing the quality system" above "make line go up" is
| degraded.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| Go after the executives and management who made the decisions.
| bumby wrote:
| Do you think engineers who design the systems also have a duty
| to the public and should be held accountable?
| derwiki wrote:
| That's an interesting question. The engineering ethics course
| I was required to take would unequivocally say yes, the
| engineers should be held accountable. If you, as an engineer,
| raise the concern, and management overrides you, then what?
| You could whistleblow and/or quit in protest. But does that
| leave you jobless? My engineering ethics course didn't talk
| about duties to support your family financially.
| bumby wrote:
| That's the question I had in a recent engineering law
| course. It's clearer IMO when engineering licenses are
| involved, but most manufacturing (like aerospace) operate
| under industrial exemptions for PE licenses.
|
| But saying "no, they'll just be jobless and hire an
| engineer who'll rubber stamp it" feels like a cop out to
| me. Why couldn't you also extend that further? "no, the
| board/shareholders will just hire a CEO who prioritizes
| schedule and profit" fits in the same domain, and nobody is
| clamoring to hold shareholders accountable.
|
| My personal opinion is that there are a few professions
| (doctor, lawyer, engineer) who have ethical duties to the
| public, irrespective of the consequences to their personal
| career. That's a legal duty, as opposed to a personal duty
| to your family.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| The company will try to find a a hungry PE to replace the
| ethical PE.
| bumby wrote:
| Now replace "PE" with "CEO" and you have the same
| dynamic, which is what the previous post was trying to
| point out.
|
| The question is about who has an ethical duty to the
| public and how to hold them accountable as such. I'm not
| sure why it applies only to one group when there's a
| reasonable precedent that engineers also have an ethical
| duty to the public.
| intotheabyss wrote:
| In aerospace, the engineers that have responsibility are
| called delegates, or DERs. It's a step above a PE, but
| your comment still applies.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I took the same course but frankly don't need an education
| to know I would never work at a company that is so
| systematically broken and careless about building safe,
| quality products. I feel genuinely bad for those who don't
| feel they have that choice or aren't gutsy enough to make
| it.
| bumby wrote:
| My experience is that people get slowly indoctrinated
| into thinking it's ok. They see the pattern over and over
| and never see a bad outcome just due to the low
| probability of bad events. It leads people to get
| complacent, "normalization of deviance" and all that.
| __derek__ wrote:
| The US Congress empowered the SEC with strong whistleblower
| protections to avoid dilemmas like that.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower/retaliation
| delfinom wrote:
| Only for securities related fraud and crime. Engineering
| work doesn't really get covered. I mean with a lot of
| indirection you can twist that it's lying to shareholders
| but the SEC wouldn't dare overextend that far without
| more clearer law.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| If that's the case they should also be paid accordingly
| bumby wrote:
| I think that's part of the issue. For example, if you
| require engineers to have licenses and stamp designs, this
| gives engineers more leverage for pay. This extends to
| software engineering as well.
| delfinom wrote:
| Licensed engineers today don't really get that much
| benefit in increased pay these days. It's just considered
| part of the job and it's really your professional
| liability insurer carrying the most burden and hence your
| premiums. Lol
| bumby wrote:
| If a job requires a PE and not all engineers have a
| license, that constrains supply. If you believe that the
| balance of supply/demand influences pay, then it can lead
| to pay increases. The issue is that most jobs that
| require PEs are also in industries with lower margins (eg
| construction). I suspect that if social media software
| engineers were regulated to require a license, those with
| a PE would see an increase in pay.
| srj wrote:
| I knew a team lead for one of Boeing's machinist groups in
| Seattle. They were a blue collar bunch and not college
| educated engineers. He wanted to have pride in their work but
| was constantly frustrated with their management and told me
| once that he didn't trust Boeing planes.
|
| Boeing didn't like when they went on strike and moved to
| South Carolina where it was cheaper and there were less union
| friendly laws.
| nrml_amnt wrote:
| I know a lot of Boeing people. Boeing's management shit-
| show is legendary around here. The night of the door plug
| incident a former Boeing coworker of mine very confidently
| told me his hypothesis of what happened -- and he was
| exactly right when the details came out. He worked there
| more than ten years ago.
| rainsford wrote:
| In the case in question here, there is no obvious engineering
| design flaw in the door plug to hold anyone accountable for.
| To the point you were replying to, it's also not clear there
| was an obvious management decision that led to the plug being
| reinstalled improperly.
| bumby wrote:
| I don't know enough about the door plug, but TFA also
| implicates the MCAS scenario. In that case, not only were
| there design flaws, but had the engineers followed their
| own internal design processes, the flaws could have been
| mitigated better.
| delfinom wrote:
| But the public has no duty to the engineer.
|
| The SEC has a whistleblower program to ensure whistleblowers
| are financially well off after basically getting blacklisted
| when the industry when they report crimes
|
| There are no such protections for engineers and the aerospace
| industry is very consolidated these days.
| bumby wrote:
| Are there whistleblower protections for medical doctors? Do
| we use this as a reason to waive any duty the doctor has to
| the patient?
| aeternum wrote:
| Those responsible will golden-parachute out and will simply be
| replaced by similar.
| jweriewj wrote:
| You know, I don't like to kick a dead horse while it's down. I
| bet Boeing feels just awful about all of this and they're someday
| soon going to start doing their best to remedy it. I don't think
| one or two or three major problems in rapid succession is
| anything more than bad luck and hey, look at all the good work
| they've done for their shareholders! We should just trust that
| they're a good American company and they're going to get better
| and leave it at that! Besides, the FAA is almost bankrupt and
| Trump is about to go back into office so why waste our time on
| things we know aren't going to get fixed?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I can't tell if this is genuine or sarcasm. Well done.
| geodel wrote:
| I guess it all comes down to thinking outsourcing is magic. Get
| same thing done at 1/4th the cost with virtually no downside.
| Hopefully C suites get what they deserve or at least get fired.
|
| But at any point do these consultants like at McKinseys, BCG, AT
| Kerney etc who advise these money saving tactics get what they
| deserve?
| mglz wrote:
| We need "leadership" people in companies to aign off on
| decisions like how engineers need to sign off on designs. That
| signature needs to make them accountable for future issues.
| doubloon wrote:
| First amendment loophole.
|
| You can't legally tell someone to commit negligent homicide,
| but if you tell them the engineering process efficiency
| management program has passed mandatory quality and safety
| checks by an accredited third party auditor, then the law can't
| touch you.
|
| Much like computer science, every problem (like how to avoid
| being charged for homicide) can be solved by layers of
| indirection.
| aeternum wrote:
| This is why regulation is rarely the answer. Corporate
| lawyers are ultimately more clever and better-paid than the
| congressional staffers that are writing the laws.
|
| It's also much easier to find a loophole than it is to
| predict and avoid all loopholes, especially with all the
| compromise required to pass a law.
| PopePompus wrote:
| They don't have to be more clever. They just have to be
| faster to adapt, which is trivial given the glacial pace at
| which legislation is passed in the US.
| toss1 wrote:
| Which also means that the regulatory agency most be
| structured to remain un-captured by the corporate
| interests it regulates, and empowered to react and adapt
| rapidly to the 'clever' legal hacks.
| Andrex wrote:
| They also have to make an example out of cases which they
| know they can win dead-to-rights. The chilling effect can
| be a societal good if used correctly.
| tycho-newman wrote:
| No lawyers are dumb enough to want less safe commercial
| planes.
| nehal3m wrote:
| I can easily imagine them to be greedy enough though.
| salawat wrote:
| Correction: No lawyer is dumb enough to go on the record,
| or to leave a signature on something that could
| reasonably create the impression upon discovery that they
| knowingly want or facilitated the creation of, less safe
| commercial planes.
|
| However, buying Boeing stock, with the current management
| in place, is synonymous with wanting less safe commercial
| planes.
| bumby wrote:
| This was glaringly obvious where I took a course on
| engineering law. So much boiled down to "don't put bad
| stuff in writing" more than "don't do bad stuff in the
| first place." The press or made a point to distinguish
| the way engineers think can get them in legal trouble
| (eg, trying to be open and transparent about design
| flaws). It kinda bummed me out.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| I wouldn't do it, but. I think it's not crazy to buy
| Boeing stock in the belief that they will figure their
| shit out and start building safer planes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It is? Boeing stock is half the value it was before the
| MAX crashes.
| aeternum wrote:
| That's never the proposal but is often the outcome.
| Firing your engineers and outsourcing or eliminating
| large amounts of QA most would agree was likely to make
| Boeing planes less safe.
|
| Yet no lawyer raised an objection. They lawyers also
| successfully argued that FAA testing was not needed and
| Boeing can and should be trusted to signoff internally.
|
| There are lots of ways to justify.
| dboreham wrote:
| > Corporate lawyers are ultimately more clever and better-
| paid than the congressional staffers that are writing the
| laws.
|
| In the US those are often the same people, right?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Its not so much in direction as it is bureaucracy and
| corruption.
|
| From what I've seen, regulatory agencies and processes are
| created for a combination of well intended concern for public
| safety and a power grab. Neither of those are based on
| indirection so much as ignorance (or hopefulness?) and greed,
| respectively.
| asveikau wrote:
| I don't think a judge or jury is going to buy that.
| bumby wrote:
| What happens in the case of Boeing where there's evidence
| that the quality checks were not complied with? At least with
| MCAS, there seems to be evidence they didn't adhere to their
| own process requirements.
| doubloon wrote:
| the OP was asking about the consultants and their
| liability. they are able to keep far away enough from
| operational details so it wont matter to them. much like a
| prsident, dictator, or mafia boss can have plausible
| deniability because the entire system is set up so that
| they set a general tone and strategy but can claim they
| dont know any details, even though a child could guess what
| the details would be.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Any evidence outsourcing is the issue?
| mnau wrote:
| Whole 787 program that relied on subcontractors. Wiki:
|
| > development budget estimated at US$7 billion as Boeing
| management claimed that they would "require subcontractors to
| foot the majority of costs"
|
| > The accumulated losses for the 787 totaled almost $27
| billion (~$32.8 billion in 2022) by May 2015.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Everyone _including_ Boeing officially and internally since
| admitted it was a dumb idea, however it 's a lot to recap in
| a HN comment. Maybe someone else will feel like it.
|
| The short version is that it's hard making things fit
| together and meet your standards when you're dealing with
| dozens of different suppliers and suppliers of suppliers who
| aren't necessarily aligned with your goals. The full story is
| a cautionary tale about letting business school types
| displace people who know how to build planes. I recommend
| seeking out one of the many retellings of Boeings struggles
| since the McDonnell Douglas merger.
|
| Instead of a retelling, I'll point you to the latest chapter:
| Boeing trying to re-acquire ownership of Spirit AeroSystems.
| It's a substantial indictment of past policy to do a full
| reversal in the name of "strengthening safety".
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/business/boeing-spirit-
| ae...
| stevenwoo wrote:
| It's aimed at entertainment but the latest Last Week Tonight
| covered this and is on YouTube. Hope this links works from my
| phone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| I wonder: is there a version of the show available without
| the audience laughter in the background?
| dboreham wrote:
| Yes. The door that fell off was part of a subcontracted
| fuselage assembly. Boeing inspectors found, on delivery, that
| it was not correctly installed. Apparently they very
| frequently found defects like this in delivered 737
| fuselages. Rather than do something sensible such as shut
| down the fuselage plant until it could make defect-free
| assemblies, instead Boeing adopted a continuous re-work and
| re-inspect flow on the delivery side of the contracting
| relationship, with of course the cost borne by the
| subcontractor. This meant that Boeing staff essentially did
| the equivalent of filing bugs in the subcontractor's repo,
| but accepted the subcontractor's CI being green as proof the
| bug was fixed. Which in this case it was not.
| kqr2 wrote:
| Obligatory internal Boeing critique on the limits of
| outsourcing in 2001 :
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/69746-hart-smith-on-...
| gcanyon wrote:
| I hate how far Boeing has fallen. The merger with McDonnell
| Douglas seems to have been a disaster of leadership. I'm sure
| that's not the only factor, but multiple articles I've read have
| pointed to that as the turning point.
|
| For anyone interested in a brief summary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URoVKPVDKPU
| polynomial wrote:
| TBF that was 27 years ago.
| asveikau wrote:
| They can probably coast on prior successes for a long time.
| Not to mention many airline fleets will be older stock, the
| replacement schedules on those things can be long. A systemic
| deterioration might take decades until people notice.
| metabagel wrote:
| It takes a long time to destroy a corporate culture which was
| built over the better part of a century.
| Jaepa wrote:
| This also isn't the first issue. Ignoring the stock
| maximization issues & issues like the Dreamliner mess.
|
| This reason this is real real bad was because the 737 Max.
| The C suite said it was real come to Jesus moment. Now we're
| finding out not only is the culture not fixed, but it has
| such mismanagement that there's no effective QA.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's even worse, because after the initial disastrous test
| flight of Starliner, NASA had ordered a review of all of
| Boeing's software practices (especially testing
| procedures), not just the Starliner code.
|
| I'd imagine they'd have caught signs of these QA issues
| while working through the software stuff.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Inquiries won't help if they stop at Boeing, or contractors
| Boeing used. The problem here is much more fundamental to the
| regulatory bodies overseeing the airline industry and the
| dependence on a few companies that have become too big for the
| government to let fail.
|
| As long as our government is beholden to large corporations,
| either through lobbying or the "too big to fail" card, we
| functionally have a fascist state where industry took over our
| government. I'm not saying we're all the way there by any means,
| but that's inevitable if we keep bandaiding problems without
| getting to the root cause.
| xwolfi wrote:
| But why is Airbus so much better ?
| _heimdall wrote:
| I don't known nearly as much about thisyhud specifically, but
| I've seen compelling arguments for how the Boeing merger
| really damaged leadership and the company as a whole. I can't
| vouch for that personally, but it was convincing to me.
|
| Moreover though, if my original argument is right, the
| failing system of regulation will fail slowly (presumably
| then all at once). The FAA and other bodies involved in the
| air industry may be broken, but it still takes a kick to push
| a company over the edge. A company like Airbus could continue
| to operate extremely well despite the broken system, though
| I'd argue with enough time they will be hit by it as well.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| Germans.
|
| OK, seriously though, when it comes to outsourcing, it's
| because Airbus/CASA _rigorously_ defined systems interfaces
| and all sorts of other stuff before outsourcing design. I 've
| been a part of the supplier chain there, and it's intense,
| but it means your part's got a good shot of slotting in the
| first time.
|
| 787 - and a whole _truckload_ of BDS work - it 's less
| "strict systems interface" and more "what is systems
| interface". You can get decades pass where the part _still_
| doesn 't fit.
| calf wrote:
| So then is the 787 considered a safe plane? Compared to the
| 777 and 747? I've read many positive comments by flyers,
| but less focusing on its safety.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| They've probably just managed to avoid gaining such an
| extreme cost cutting culture that Boeing management is
| believed to have. Probably also less openly corrupt
| politicians over in Europe. Congress-critters don't even
| really make an effort to hide that they're at Boeing's beck
| and call.
| cpursley wrote:
| Fewer MBAs in Europe.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I'll go one further: this is a compelling argument for, at
| least, direct government _participation_ in markets we consider
| crucial to a functioning society.
| _heimdall wrote:
| This gets to the core of what modern governments are even
| trying to do. At least in the US, the concept of Executive
| branch agencies creating and enforcing regulations, and
| therefore manipulating markets, is fairly new.
|
| I would personally want to see all of those agencies
| disbanded and regulations removed in favor of trusting
| markets and consumers to deal with problems. If nothing else,
| government intervention should be an extremely rare
| occurrence rather than business as usual.
|
| With that said, there are certainly benefits of those
| agencies that would be lost. Its just my opinion that the
| good doesn't outweigh the bad, and that a system with
| fundamental issues and misaligned incentives should be gotten
| rid of as soon as possible. The short term damage caused
| would always be less than the long term damage of continuing
| to hold them together with duct tape and bubble gum.
| rstat1 wrote:
| Yes we should totally get rid of any oversight of large
| companies, because they will totally continue to put the
| safety of their customers ahead of making profit number
| bigger.
|
| They totally won't screw you over and/or kill people due to
| poor design choices if it means they can save a buck.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Are you arguing that they don't do that with federal
| oversight?
|
| Without government oversight providing plausible
| deniability and the appearance of safety, companies
| wouldn't get this large. When consumers don't believe the
| government is ensuring that only safe products and
| services are available they will step up to make their
| own decisions.
|
| Case in point, if Boeing flights started to show a
| pattern of safety issues _and_ customers didn 't believe
| that planes _must_ be safe because they are regulated,
| consumers may decide to fly less or not at all. Companies
| would have to respond when money dries up and plane sit
| empty. Companies would also focus on safety if they know
| their business could disappear either through customers
| losing faith in them or due to the heavy cost of
| litigation when their safety lapses create a pattern of
| harm.
|
| Regulation on this scale serves a few purposes. Most
| importantly, I'd argue, to give financial and legal cover
| to the largest corporations, and to create the appearance
| of control and safety beyond what any realistic guarantee
| could ever possibly be.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the fundamental problem is information asymmetry. when a
| consumer makes a purchase, they do not and can not
| evaluate the safety of a product design. As such, the
| nash equilibrium is for manufacturers to cut all the
| corners they can.
| _heimdall wrote:
| When Boeing flights have repeated safety issues on
| passenger flights, what more information is needed?
|
| As it stands, consumers don't have much reason to act for
| themselves as the FAA and government at large would
| prefer that we trust they have it under control.
|
| That may even be true, but surely that falls under the
| information imbalance you mention. We don't know exactly
| how the regulators are responding, though we do know that
| FAA regulations rely heavily on self-report mechanisms in
| which the companies effecrively regulate themselves.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| The market resolution to a Koch brothers outfit moving tar
| sands coke next door is "tough bananas".
|
| Regulations and administrative law exists to prevent a
| free-for-all of "fuck you, do something about it".
|
| Because your air, your water, your society is at risk from
| this kind of "unfettered" capitalism.
| peteradio wrote:
| In what some call a frightening abuse of executive power the
| FAA and Dept of Justice have combined powers in a "Power
| Rangers type thing" and issued a sweeping judgement against all
| holders of an MBA. A prepared statement released by the lead
| investigators from the Dept of Justice said "Those who can't do
| teach and those who can't do either become either an accountant
| or an MBA or probably both. At some point the gangrenous limb
| must be swiftly cleaved and that is our intent here today."
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| >>> Inquiries won't help if they stop at Boeing, or contractors
| Boeing used.
|
| The investigation hasn't stopped at Boeing nor Boeing
| contractors.
|
| It's not covered in the NYT article linked in this HN topic,
| but the Wall Street Journal article that was first to report
| the Justice Department investigation says the NTSB is "seeking
| to interview Federal Aviation Administration Officials in the
| Seattle area who oversee Boeing's manufacturing".[0]
|
| Sounds like an initial step towards identifying any fault that
| lies with the FAA and FAA oversight.
|
| [0] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/justice-department-
| ope...
| _heimdall wrote:
| > seeking to interview Federal Aviation Administration
| Officials in the Seattle area who oversee Boeing's
| manufacturing
|
| That could mean anything at the moment, though hopefully its
| a good sign.
|
| It wouldn't be suprising for the NTSB or Justice Department
| to want testimony from the FAA related to a case against
| Boeing. It will be very surprising in my opinion if the
| interviews lead to any question of the FAA itself.
| Importantly, if the FAA was in any way a subject of the
| investigation they likely wouldn't be seeking interviews as
| that generally isn't a term used for potential defendants.
| userabchn wrote:
| I wonder whether the recent release of the Comac C919 [1] has
| anything to do with it - either through pushing Boeing to cut
| corners to compete on cost, or through malicious amplification of
| bad news stories involving Boeing.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919
| nneonneo wrote:
| Boeing screwed up here and let a door fall out of a flying
| plane. They don't need anyone amplifying their bad news; it's
| going to come to them.
|
| Boeing and its subcontractors apparently didn't even keep
| appropriate records of the maintenance that was performed here.
| That's a huge oversight and probably a big part in why they're
| being criminally investigated.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'd be careful about over-regulation and liabilities (especially
| criminal liability). Such has completely crushed the general
| aviation business. This is why Cessnas flying today are all from
| the 1960s. Their engines require leaded gas, which is a big
| problem, but regulation and liability has made it impractical to
| develop a modern engine.
|
| I.e. not only is innovation crushed by regulation, liability also
| prevents any new designs, because new designs always carry an
| element of risk.
|
| Criminal liabilities mean people will do their best to deny it
| and cover it up, rather than fix it. The incredible safety of
| aviation today is not the result of punishing people who make
| mistakes.
| bdcravens wrote:
| > Criminal liabilities mean people will do their best to deny
| it and cover it up, rather than fix it.
|
| Feels like this has been the status quo for Boeing for a few
| years regarding the 737 MAX. Actions with real teeth are
| required to incentive change.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You can hang people if you like, but you won't like the
| result. The aviation industry has not gotten as safe as it is
| today by whipping, hanging, or jailing people.
|
| Even _fixing_ a mistake is an implicit _admission of guilt_ ,
| and so people will not fix them. They will cover up and deny
| instead.
| chronofar wrote:
| > but regulation and liability has made it impractical to
| develop a modern engine.
|
| Can you go into more detail about this? What
| regulation/liability specifically has stifled modern engine
| development? And is the answer deregulation? Or more carefully
| applied regulation of a different sort?
|
| I think specifics are critically important for this kind of
| thing. General rhetoric is often "too much regulation" or "not
| enough regulation," but what we usually want is "the correct
| regulation to align incentives," which is often different for
| different cases.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've seen discussions of the engine, about the regulatory
| barriers to designing new piston engines for Cessnas so the
| leaded gas can be dispensed with. Businesses don't want
| anything to do with changing anything at all about those
| airplanes.
| matchagaucho wrote:
| The liability, in this case, is not about innovation, but about
| cost-reduction and outsourcing to a vendor with (allegedly) no
| audit and compliance controls.
| wunderland wrote:
| This is quite an outlandish take. The safety of the aviation
| industry is by and large directly due to strict safety
| regulations, many of which Boeing pioneered before being taken
| over and financialized into the mess it is today.
|
| New entrants in this industry need a ton of capital, made only
| worse by the monopoly suppliers in every single airframe
| sector. If anything, there needs to be more regulation to
| breakup these behemoths (or, prevent mergers like McDonnell
| Douglas and Boeing) in the first place.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| Is this much different outside of the US, or are there similar
| levels of red-tape around developing engines/planes for GA
| there too?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Good question. I don't know, except that other countries
| often just rubber-stamp FAA regulations and adopt them.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The idea that people shouldn't be charged with crimes because
| that makes them cover up crimes is pretty hard to grok.
|
| We should also be careful of underregulation. Most of all, we
| should be careful of reflexive, reactionary, and/or partisan
| reasoning and decision-making. Part of that is this
| hypersenstive allergy to regulation that has people sneezing
| and coughing every time the idea is within a mile of them.
| That's arguably a reason for the Boeing situation.
|
| Business leaders always clamor for less regulation because they
| have big egos (they cannot be constrained! also they must know
| more than the regulator), because sometimes there is a negative
| impact on their quarterly revenue, and because many have
| embraced an ideology. When things go to heck, then it would
| have been better to be regulated more - a situation Boeing is
| in now, and that financial markets seem to find themselves in
| every decade or so.
|
| (Regulation also helps create a marketplace where you can focus
| on making better planes, not taking risks with people's lives
| to keep up with the other crazy competitors.)
| rainsford wrote:
| > The idea that people shouldn't be charged with crimes
| because that makes them cover up crimes is pretty hard to
| grok.
|
| I think the point is more about what we treat as crimes. My
| assumption is that the grandparent post is a reaction to the
| number of people in the comments here demanding criminal
| liability for the door plug issue, especially for Boeing
| executives, despite a notable lack of evidence of criminal
| actions (or actions that should be criminal) by Boeing
| executives or anyone else for that matter.
|
| Charging people with crimes when there is evidence they've
| committed crimes seems like fair game, but the assumption
| that a crime was involved just because something bad happened
| seems like a bad approach to aviation safety. Maybe that's
| where this case will end up, but calls for it now seem wildly
| premature and likely to have the chilling effect the
| grandparent poster is talking about.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My point is not about deliberate criminal behavior (such as
| sabotage) but simply making mistakes. Designing and
| building an airliner is an incredibly complex undertaking,
| and most mistakes are "obvious" only in hindsight.
|
| I recall one where the vent for dumping fuel turned out to
| be upstream of the cabin air intake. Eventually, an
| airliner needed to dump fuel, it was sucked up by the cabin
| air intake and the vapors blown through the cabin, and of
| course it blew up.
|
| It sounds like "how could someone have made such a
| mistake!". The cabin engineers were a separate group from
| the engine people, that's how.
|
| Another crash happened because a maintenance worker taped
| over the pitot tubes to protect them when the airplane was
| cleaned. He forgot to remove them afterwards. The tape
| wasn't very visible, and the inspection missed the tape.
| The airplane took off and crashed. The maintenance worker
| was prosecuted for his mistake. I felt sorry for the poor
| bastard - not only did he have to live with the guilt, but
| was jailed as well.
|
| P.S. if someone in the aviation industry comes to work high
| or drunk, and makes a mistake while under the influence, I
| have no issue with prosecuting them.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > My point is not about deliberate criminal behavior
| (such as sabotage) but simply making mistakes.
|
| I agree, but of course the difficult grey area is
| negligence; obviously some things are criminally
| unacceptable. The standard is sort-of 'should they have
| known better?' There's no easy, objective, logical map to
| an answer.
|
| Criminal prosecutions of corporations and executives are
| rare enough that I'm not too worried about it being
| overdone, but of course there is the risk of emotional or
| crowd-pleasing decisions.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > they must know more than the regulator
|
| Back when I worked on the 757 stab trim gearbox, I certainly
| knew far more about it than the regulators. There was just no
| way they knew every detail of it like I did. I also did all
| the math on it, and I was never questioned about it by the
| regulators. They never asked me a single question about any
| of it.
|
| > Business leaders always clamor for less regulation because
| they have big egos
|
| They often clamor for more regulation for the purpose of
| making it very difficult for anyone to compete with them.
|
| > Regulation also helps create a marketplace where you can
| focus on making better planes, not taking risks with people's
| lives to keep up with the other crazy competitors
|
| That's a self-contradictory statement. Making better planes
| is how you compete successfully.
| WalterBright wrote:
| P.S. The original reason for government medical
| certification of doctors was to push jewish and black
| doctors out of business.
|
| See "Competition & Monopoly in Medical Care" by Frech
| https://www.amazon.com/Competition-Monopoly-Medical-Care-
| Fre...
|
| Regulation is not always done in the best interests of the
| public. It's a blunt, and dangerous, weapon.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| In cases where archive.ph is blocked:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240309232411if_/https://www.ny...
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| This is accountability theater because of institutional US
| government support and dependency on Boeing as a strategic
| defense contractor for other divisions. After MCAS, they know
| they can't be touched.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-03-10 23:01 UTC)