FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes • Hacker News Board

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#241

Post by whyenot » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #232

brentm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think overall we should consider this process a very positive thing, FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future. It's unfortunate that it took two tragedies to get us here but if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time.

I would prefer that Boeing be put out of business, rather than "learning a lot from this process". I think that the word "unfortunate" is too conservative to cover this situation. A corporation is not a person and punishment isn't always the answer, but we are looking at a lot of deaths and this new issue sounds like it could have caused even more. If the FAA had missed this one we could have been looking at another…

Boeing is never going to be "put out of business." They are too important to the US economy and US national defense for that to ever happen.

What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law.

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#242

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

hwestiii wrote: post #234

This all points up the glaring conflicts of interest in the corporate business environment. Most of us think that Boeing is the business of building airplanes, but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders, and aerospace is just a vehicle toward that end. The Boeing CEO's steadfast refusal to take responsibility for these two crashes are nothing more than CYA designed to lim…

>but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders

This is such a tired argument.

How much money do you think Boeing is going to make for its shareholders if its planes are crashing and fleet is grounded?

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#243

Post by dominicr » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

“Addressing this condition will reduce pilot workload” is a funny way of saying they're going to stop planes crashing themselves!

We're all quite used to having problems described in the least threatening way but I'm thankful that I've never had to do so about something that could result in people dying.

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#244

Post by jussij » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

yots wrote: post #203

bigiain wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I hear, at least one of the carriers here that _was_ intending to fly them this year, has cancelled all the maintenance courses for them... They aren't going to be flying them until 2025 apparently, so all the engineers booked on courses to do maintenance for the 747MAX8 are getting re-booked for Airbus courses...

I may not be interpreting this right, but does that imply they already have the planes, which will now stay in storage until 2025 waiting for all issues to be resolved? If that's correct, aren't there possible risks for flying a plane that had such a long period of inactivity?

> which will now stay in storage until 2025

This is the really big problem Boeing now faces.

For these planes to fly again they need to be certified safe to fly again.

However since the FAA was one of the last authorities to ground the plane, it really does not matter what outcome they achieve in their current investigation.

Other aviation authorities around the world will take their own time to investigate if the plane should be allowed to fly.

The conundrum for Boeing is it wants the plane back in the air ASAP but I'm sure many of the world aviation authorities are in no real rush.

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#245

Post by jussij » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #238

jussij wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to take your word on this dual input alarm as I have not read or seen any details on this alarm. Now if that alarm was raised then that suggests both pilots were in error as they both seemed to have ignore that alarm. However that was never the reason for my original reply. All I was replying to was idea that the flight control was doing some sort of averaging of the two pilot inputs . That to me just see…

>Now if that alarm The sounding of the alarm is in the transcripts in the accident report. The Airbus does average the inputs if both pilots are making inputs at the same time.

> The Airbus does average the inputs if both pilots are making inputs at the same time.

Do you have a url/link/pdf that describes this behaviour?

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#246

Post by linuxftw » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #242

hwestiii wrote: post #234

This all points up the glaring conflicts of interest in the corporate business environment. Most of us think that Boeing is the business of building airplanes, but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders, and aerospace is just a vehicle toward that end. The Boeing CEO's steadfast refusal to take responsibility for these two crashes are nothing more than CYA designed to lim…

> but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders This is such a tired argument. How much money do you think Boeing is going to make for its shareholders if its planes are crashing and fleet is grounded?

You're right. The real motivation is always making money for the executives and board-members. Bonuses are paid for revenue, not for not killing folks.

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#247

Post by bumby » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #218

bumby wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hanlon's Razor is a more likely answer to why the FAA failed

Did they take the ongoing multi-faceted bribes by incompetence, with no malice involved ? Hanlon's Razor is useful in some scopes, but imagine applying it to banking, politics, corporate regulation or law enforcement. Depending on your position, not doing due diligent and acting ethically is malice.

Not doubting you, but has there been evidence of bribes in the case of the 737-MAX? I'm genuinely curious.

It may be mismanagement or incompetence, but I don't know if it gets to the degree of malice. Here's how I see it working:

FAA is obligated to provide oversight. FAA is also not given resources to do due diligence themselves (e.g., one inspector may be responsible for multiple airframes, meaning there is no possible way to know the systems in intimate detail to catch everything). To mitigate the lack of resources, they contractually obligate or delegate the oversight to the manufacturer who (presumably) does have that system knowledge. However, it's still the FAA's job to ensure the manufacturer is doing due diligence on oversight. This can easily become a catch-22...without resources to catch the manufacturer errors (e.g., FAA was apparently unaware of software configuration changes), it makes it tough to throw the red flag when everyone is clamoring to keep the schedule moving. They have to defer to the system "experts".

The above is not based on personal experience with this particular case and I'm not saying the FAA is not culpable. I just don't think it's due to deliberate malice. It's the same issue all over the government in terms of oversight. Oversight functions are often the easiest to scale back during budget crunches which, over time, will increase the risk of bad events. Then there is an uproar, the pendulum swings the other way, people want to fund oversight functions until they are once again lulled into complacency by the lack of bad events (which is actually an indication that the oversight is working).

There is likely some degree of bribes in most government organizations. It's a cancer that needs to be removed, but the real question is whether it's at a level that makes true governance infeasible.

I would love to see the government acting as a proper and impartial oversight role. But are taxpayers willing to pay for it? Sure, we can make a case for increased funding to support the FAA after 737-MAX, but what about what about when things seem to be going smoothly? And this is just one sector...would taxpayers be willing to provide the same resources to the FDA, EPA, OSHA, and all the other stretched-too-thin organizations?

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#248

Post by ordu » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #242

hwestiii wrote: post #234

This all points up the glaring conflicts of interest in the corporate business environment. Most of us think that Boeing is the business of building airplanes, but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders, and aerospace is just a vehicle toward that end. The Boeing CEO's steadfast refusal to take responsibility for these two crashes are nothing more than CYA designed to lim…

> but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders This is such a tired argument. How much money do you think Boeing is going to make for its shareholders if its planes are crashing and fleet is grounded?

Mostly it doesn't happen. Shareholders might want to take risks. This time it gone bad. Next time it probably wouldn't.

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#249

Post by foldr » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

jussij wrote: post #245

foldr wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now if that alarm The sounding of the alarm is in the transcripts in the accident report. The Airbus does average the inputs if both pilots are making inputs at the same time.

> The Airbus does average the inputs if both pilots are making inputs at the same time. Do you have a url/link/pdf that describes this behaviour?

https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/docume...

"When both sticks are moved simultaneously, the system adds the signals of both pilots algebraically."

Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes

#250

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #246

navigatesol wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but as a publicly traded company, its real business is making money for its shareholders This is such a tired argument. How much money do you think Boeing is going to make for its shareholders if its planes are crashing and fleet is grounded?

You're right. The real motivation is always making money for the executives and board-members. Bonuses are paid for revenue, not for not killing folks.

>You're right. The real motivation is always making money for the executives and board-members.

What sort of mindset must one have to assume that once a person becomes a "manager" or "executive" they are suddenly immoral or evil? Such an odd worldview.

I guarantee no one at Boeing make the conscious effort to kill hundreds of people for a bonus. Mistakes happen. People of all standing are corrupt. We fix the issues and move on, not cry about executives, board members and shareholders (of which most people on this board are striving to be).