The Coming Boeing Bailout? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#31

Post by onli » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #28

onli wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was honestly under the impression that the provided checklist did not work, as it included elements that did not work in the 737-MAX as expected when coming from earlier models. Plus the fact that the forces were to strong, the pilot could not manually correct the course. Besides, did the pilots have opportunity to read and implement the new checklist?

There was no new checklist. (Arguably, this may be a problem.) The existing checklist was unchanged from other 737s and the required actions were all "memory items" (items which must be recalled and implemented by the crew from memory, prior to referencing and completing the written checklist in the QRH). Any 737 crewmember would have had to have demonstrated those checklist items, from memory, prior to receiving the…

Well, okay. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18518176/boeing-737-max-cr... agrees (though I vehemently disagree with its title when interpreting it as referring to pilot errors! But that might be the point). Problem seems to be that it was basically impossible to realize which checklist to follow and to identify the problem. I think my sentence when interpreted with that in mind still works (and you are still right as well): Pilots had no opportunity (several reasons, like not being informed about system changes) to save the plane, but not it was 100% impossible during the whole incident to save the plane (it was probably impossible after they deactivated the electric trim system).

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#32

Post by pinkfoot » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #16

Governments should have predatory practice towards shareholders in these cases. If company can't be allowed to fail (strategically important or government regulated sector like banking) there should be 'fluid bankruptcy' option. When they default or fail their obligations, the next day the government owns them without operations being disrupted. Shareholders lose everything overnight and any private debt would have s…

What you will discover is that you soon have no systemically-important high-tech companies.

For example, the excessive litigation in the 1970s against general aviation just led to Cessna and co. making planes designed in the 1940s.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#33

Post by philjohn » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

willyt wrote: post #27

bradleyjg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why necessitate? Businesses sometimes go under, that’s how the system works. The government ought not pick winners and losers.

I’m guessing that it’s considered a strategically important business to US defence? The US government would presumably be unwilling to allow all those teams of specialist engineers and technicians to be disbanded and all the facilities and assets to be sold off as would happen when a normal business fails.

Arguably those people would be able to form new, competing, companies with their know-how and a degree of investment. They would, naturally, have to start out small and grow from there - but Boeing was tiny once, as was McDonald Douglass, Lockheed etc. etc.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#34

Post by philjohn » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #21

onli wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would actually have to try really hard to fuck this up. Murdering 350 civilians with lies and negligence for profit and "shareholder value" just might suffice. They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. > It would be amusing if the US government gives them money though. The US is already g…

> They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. Though Boeing has significant contribution, if you read the report on the Ethiopian Air 737-Max crash, I think it's easy to see several places where there was ample opportunity for the pilots to save the plane, particularly in light of the LionAir cra…

Didn't the crew save the airplane because there was a third person there to help manually trim as the force required was too much for two people alone, whilst also having to pull back on the yoke with massive force?

That means it was dumb luck (a third person being there) and not due to following procedures if those procedures are nearly impossible to follow, or require superhuman strength.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#35

Post by macintux » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #33

willyt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing that it’s considered a strategically important business to US defence? The US government would presumably be unwilling to allow all those teams of specialist engineers and technicians to be disbanded and all the facilities and assets to be sold off as would happen when a normal business fails.

Arguably those people would be able to form new, competing, companies with their know-how and a degree of investment. They would, naturally, have to start out small and grow from there - but Boeing was tiny once, as was McDonald Douglass, Lockheed etc. etc.

Boeing was tiny when it didn’t take billions of dollars to design any new aircraft.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#36

Post by fendy3002 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #16

Governments should have predatory practice towards shareholders in these cases. If company can't be allowed to fail (strategically important or government regulated sector like banking) there should be 'fluid bankruptcy' option. When they default or fail their obligations, the next day the government owns them without operations being disrupted. Shareholders lose everything overnight and any private debt would have s…

Government in my country will use that to take the shares, then do corruption from inside and fattening their wallets.

Im against shareholder is immune because of bailout, but I don't think government handling business can be better.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#37

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:25 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #34

sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. Though Boeing has significant contribution, if you read the report on the Ethiopian Air 737-Max crash, I think it's easy to see several places where there was ample opportunity for the pilots to save the plane, particularly in light of the LionAir cra…

Didn't the crew save the airplane because there was a third person there to help manually trim as the force required was too much for two people alone, whilst also having to pull back on the yoke with massive force? That means it was dumb luck (a third person being there) and not due to following procedures if those procedures are nearly impossible to follow, or require superhuman strength.

No; the third crew member on prior Lion Air flight (043) is the one who diagnosed the issue as runaway trim and cued the flight crew to execute that checklist. I've read nothing to suggest that they participated physically in the response (despite having read quite a bit on the topic).

The excessive force on the trim required in the Ethiopian Air case was a consequence of the crew leaving the engines at high power, the trim having run farther nose down, and the elevator being held nose up, resulting in loading the horizontal stabilizer thus making the trim difficult to move. (Though I'm critical of their decision to restore and leave power to the trim system without commanding aircraft-nose-up after correctly diagnosing runaway trim, I don't really fault them for leaving excessive power in. That's a reasonable response to the initial indications and by the later time they realized it was a trim issue, they were pretty well loaded up struggling with the airplane that was well out of trim, so undoing their thrust command [which would typically result in a descent that they didn't want/couldn't afford] probably isn't reasonable to expect.)

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#38

Post by uhhhhhhh » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

kuu wrote: post #10

How did Boeing make miracles in civilian aircraft? In short, the the civilian engineers were in charge. And it fell apart because the company, due to a merger, killed its engineering-first culture Uhm, this makes me think about the engineering-first of Google. I wonder if Google will end in the same path...

Haven't they already taken some big strides down that direction?

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#39

Post by FigBug » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #16

Governments should have predatory practice towards shareholders in these cases. If company can't be allowed to fail (strategically important or government regulated sector like banking) there should be 'fluid bankruptcy' option. When they default or fail their obligations, the next day the government owns them without operations being disrupted. Shareholders lose everything overnight and any private debt would have s…

Isn't that pretty much what happened with GM? The stocks and bonds were all wiped out. And then the new GM was owned by the government / union until they did an IPO a few years later?

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#40

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

betimsl wrote: post #30

Great article. Now: > In 1993, a Defense official in the Clinton administration, Bill Perry, called defense contractor CEOs to a dinner, nicknamed “the last supper.” Bill you devil. Jokes aside, now imagine you're this guy and have all this power in your hands, imagine that for a second, what would you do? If you ask him, he did great. Because all he knows is that , he can't see past the situation because he is a sma…

> This begs a question is he responsible?

Well yes he is. It doesn't matter that much what his original intentions were (not that we will ever learn true intentions of these backdoor deals, politics is dirty at every level), the result is what it is. And this meeting was the decisive push for it.

Will he stand trial for this? I can't imagine it happening. Can he claim to be a good moral person who did only the best possible choices for mankind/US citizens in his life? Absolutely not.