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Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

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Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#151

Post by everdev »

> Investigators discovered upon their arrival that someone had made off with the spring and end cap, but at the time they did not know the significance of this act. The NTSB and Parker Bertea replaced the spring, the end cap, and several other parts that were ruined in the crash and began running tests on the valve. Nothing abnormal was found. Boeing, which had packed the valve for shipping, did not explain why it kept the spring and the end cap. It instead tried to steer the NTSB toward a conclusion that the crash was caused by a wind rotor, a phenomenon similar to a sideways tornado that could sometimes be found along the Rocky Mountains.

Is this true?

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#152

Post by stcredzero »

Retric wrote: post #120
stcredzero wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No orchestration is needed. Managers only need to look with disdain to anyone that brings the issue. Networks and social media extend the reach of these kinds of disdain, and take these mechanisms beyond the walls of the office and organization. In the present day climate, where accusations causing outrage tend more easily to become viral, one need not be someone's manager or even have a close relationship to exercis…

It’s not really social pressure when managers have so much direct power not just in major events like a lay off or promotion, but also day to day tasking. This generally results in people becoming hypersensitive to their boss’s disapproval. Social networks on the other hand have far less direct impact which results in less socially accepted statements becoming common.

This generally results in people becoming hypersensitive to their boss’s disapproval.

In 2019, there are lots of examples of people being quite sensitive to approval over social media. This differs by individual circumstance. However, in 2019 there are entire fields where people must ascribe to some form of group consensus, or basically become un-personed from it. Media work seems to be particularly sensitive to this.

not just in major events like a lay off or promotion, but also day to day tasking

There are examples of journalists consulting and influencing each other in the context of news cycle events.

Social networks on the other hand have far less direct impact

This was once true but now is simply out of date and very wrong. In 2019, there are social networks which have very direct impact, and very large impacts on people's livelihood. There are entire fields where such social networks and online communication can get someone un-personed. These are basically the 2019 version of the "old boy network."

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#153

Post by cr0sh »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #82
jackschultz wrote: post #46

I 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?

This is a common pattern for posts on r/DIY on Reddit, where people have 5-100 photos covering each step of a project, and each photo has a bit of text below it explaining the process. I thing it works great, and I much prefer it over videos because I can take my time, and videos tend to gloss over the details. My only issue with Imgur is that on mobile the images are very low-res, so zooming in to see details doesn'…

My biggest complaint with the pattern is that there's no way to easily save the text with the images. If you "download the post", you get the images, but not the text. Even an XML or JSON of the text as a large "blob" would be better than nothing. Heck, for that matter, a flat ASCII file delimited with line breaks would be fine.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#154

Post by [deleted] »

pfortuny wrote: post #141
rkangel wrote: post #42

Earlier 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.…

The Volskwagen saga can also be attributed to incomptenence but alas! it was not caused by it but by malice. We are humans after all and money talks. The razor is for non-economical causes.

[deleted]

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#155

Post by notahacker »

fixermark wrote: post #140
benj111 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be an oligopoly, but it is in the airlines interests to keep them on their toes. If you're an airline of any size it would make sense to have relationships with multiple manufacturers, for the reasons you describe. They can decrease their Boeing orders and increase competitors orders, to maintain relationships and punish Boeing. If you single source your your fleet, you increase the odds of something like this…

I agree with your reasoning and I'm surprised that companies like Southwest seem to aim for monoculture. ... unless the risk and cost model they're looking at is that having multiple planes in the fleet increases the risk that spare parts are depleted for a particular model, ground crews aren't sufficiently cross-trained and errors on their part make flights less safe on average than in a monoculture, etc.

It's less an operational risk calculation and more an operational cost calculation.

It's entirely possible (and for airlines operating a wide variety of different length routes, entirely necessary) to safely operate a wide variety of airframes, but it does entail paying for a lot more redundancy.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#157

Post by notahacker »

kenneth wrote: post #118
x0x0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be a duopoly: Boeing and Airbus. There was Embraer, but Boeing is acquiring (acquired?). There's also Bombardier, but Airbus has some partnership deal with them.

There are 4[1] manufacturers of commercial jets today: Boeing (American), Airbus (European), Embraer (Brazilian), and Bombardier (Canadian). Embraer's Boeing deal is being termed a "joint venture" rather than an acquisition, with Boeing getting 80% of most of Embraer's business. Important to note it has been rejected by regulators and shareholders on multiple occasions, and still hasn't gone through. Bombardier recen…

Embraer and Bombardier only compete with the very bottom end of Boeing/Airbus' product range anyway. In that respect, even the Russian and Chinese manufacturers that rarely sell outside their home country's sphere of influence are more credible competitors.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#158

Post by VBprogrammer »

bluedino wrote: post #106
marcinzm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Couldn't they just bring it back to life under a new name?

I'd be very surprised if Boeing have their assets structured in such a way that a massive liability in one area could take out the entire business.

At a very minimum they will have Boeing spares and maintenance ltd. Probably one in each country they operate in.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#159

Post by ams6110 »

peteradio wrote: post #99
rkangel wrote: post #42

Earlier 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.…

> didn't take the problem seriously, and that they were biased towards conclusions that weren't their fault. I think that is malice personally.

I was about to say, then that is a definition you have made for yourself. My understanding of the word malice is to mean "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another" as Webster defines the word.

But I discovered there is a second, legal context for the word which means "intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm without legal justification or excuse" so I guess in the law, "malice" is just another word for "deliberate."

I still think the first definition is what most people are familiar with, and that unless you think the engineers deliberately designed the rudder control system to behave in this way, knowing it would cause crashes and fatalities, the company having a bias after the fact to not blame themselves does not rise to that standard.

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