Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
[deleted]
Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
61–70 of 368 posts
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#62> Instead, Boeing tried to claim that flight 427 crashed because a pilot had a seizure and depressed the rudder. NTSB investigators dismissed this as ridiculous. > Boeing had no choice but to carry out the changes, but the company never stopped trying to deflect blame. While the investigation was ongoing, it adopted a philosophy of trying to avoid paying out damages to families of crews because this could be legally…
That would require more evidence than it sounds like there is. And that's assuming that you subscribe to the motivations put forward in this article. I generally follow Hanlon's razor - "Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence". I have a hard time believing that a cover-up in Boeing was orchestrated over several years by a group of people all who didn't care about loss of life.…
Hanlon's razor doesn't apply here. No one is implying that anyone at Boeing allowed this to happen due to malice, that would be truly insane.
Negligence perpetuated by greed is far more likely and equally as criminal.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#63I know these comments are kind of frowned upon on threads talking about an issue like this, but very interesting use of imgur. Effectively a blog post focused on images, which is a very good way of thinking about posts I feel. People love images rather than only words. Has imgur been looking at this? Trying to push it as another big use for its platform?
I felt the same reading it. Thinking wow this is the best use of imgur.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#64Did Boeing executives go to jail for this disgusting cover up? I hope that the diesel cover-up of Volkswagen and the people that went to jail will motivate governments to pursue criminal charges against Boeing and/or Airbus if similar things happen. Fighting blame by lying and deflection at the risk of death should be a criminal offense. It's mass murder.
Interesting point. We could be looking at a huge compensation from Boeing to the major airlines for this.
But personally, I think the damage to their reputation, and possibly FAA's, would far exceed that.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand this. Each of these scandals is a mortal danger to Boeing. One of them might someday finally put it out of business. Whereas if they reacted to each case by being committed to finding the problem whatever it is, they could greatly reduce their liability by reducing the ultimate number of fatalities due to any one problem.
Boeing is a US military supplier and a strategic US asset in the airspace industry, the US government will ensure that they do not go under no matter how much damage they do (see car industry). Furthermore even if that wasn't the case the people who cause these issues have almost zero chance of facing personal liability. As a result, it's in the personal interest of the people running Boeing to cut corners and extrac…
This is an excess of capitalism: those with capital are given too much power, and their self interest ends up being entirely selfish at the expense of society at large. Capitalism needs regulation, and if the system ends up entrenching itself so that regulation becomes impossible (because of corruption, self-interest, short-term gains, etc), then it means the entire system of capitalism is faulty.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which movie is this quote from? :)
Fight Club
And is probably a reference to the Pinto Memo - a cost-benefit analysis performed by Ford in 1973 [0]
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#67Is it just me or a lot of big names in various industries are dropping the ball on QA? From exploding Nike shoes to crashing Beings, to faulty MacBooks.
One of those things is not like the others.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#68I know these comments are kind of frowned upon on threads talking about an issue like this, but very interesting use of imgur. Effectively a blog post focused on images, which is a very good way of thinking about posts I feel. People love images rather than only words. Has imgur been looking at this? Trying to push it as another big use for its platform?
FYI, the post is by reddit user /u/Admiral_Cloudberg/, who has done a number of flight crash investigation posts on imgur like that: https://www.reddit.com/user/Admiral_Cloudberg/submitted/
Edit: Ooops, someone already mentioned this below. Oh well.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would require more evidence than it sounds like there is. And that's assuming that you subscribe to the motivations put forward in this article. I generally follow Hanlon's razor - "Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence". I have a hard time believing that a cover-up in Boeing was orchestrated over several years by a group of people all who didn't care about loss of life.…
> I have a hard time believing that a cover-up in Boeing was orchestrated over several years by a group of people all who didn't care about loss of life. No orchestration is needed. Managers only need to look with disdain to anyone that brings the issue. If your company does not put a lot of resources to make it transparent it is going to be opaque by default. Transparency is hard to achieve when humans are so good r…
Exactly right - same thing that happened at NASA. There aren’t grand conspiracies - just people acting in their own interests, based on the incentives that have been set up (or evolved) in the organization.
Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would require more evidence than it sounds like there is. And that's assuming that you subscribe to the motivations put forward in this article. I generally follow Hanlon's razor - "Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence". I have a hard time believing that a cover-up in Boeing was orchestrated over several years by a group of people all who didn't care about loss of life.…
Hanlon's razor doesn't apply here. No one is implying that anyone at Boeing allowed this to happen due to malice, that would be truly insane. Negligence perpetuated by greed is far more likely and equally as criminal.
In this case I mean it as 'active' vs 'passive'.
There is the implication in the article that Boeing purposefully went and stole springs that could be used to diagnose an issue that they were fully aware of. That I would describe as 'active' and I have trouble believing.
Didn't put credence, time and effort into reports because they were inconvenient I would describe as 'passive'.
Passive is still bad - likely results in the same number of people dying, but a different interpretation of the situation.