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Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

reuters.com

391–400 of 637 posts

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#391
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess it's the following: https://investors.boeing.com/investors/investor-news/press-r... "The Board of Directors decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the Company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders. " is quite brutal indeed, more something I'd expect from commentary.

Maybe the board deserves equal brutality? But no, its chairman is now made the new CEO ...

I agree. They should all excuse themselves from the position for dereliction of duty. I question the usefulness of BoD in general, not just that of Boeing.

https://www.boeing.com/company/general-info/corporate-govern....

These are their background.

Biotech

Private equity

Medical device

Former chief of staff

Energy

US ambassador

Former airline ceo

Us ambassador

Insurance head

Chief of navy

Former us trade rep

Health insurance head

Advisor to blackstone, GE head

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#392
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet only the 737 Max needed a software fix

That's because the pitch-up behavior isn't actually the problem.

[Boeing] engineers observed a tendency for the plane’s nose to pitch upward during a specific extreme maneuver. After other efforts to fix the problem failed, the solution they arrived at was a piece of software — the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) — that would move a powerful control surface at the tail to push the airplane’s nose down.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the...

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect to be able to sit in my seat without having my knees crushed? How about that for a start?

One option is to not fly american airlines (with a lower case a). The highest rated US airline is 3 out of 5 stars on Skytrax. As far as I understand, the reason for this is that foreign airlines are not allowed to fly US domestic routes, and most US people don't fly international which means they don't know that things could be better. It also seems like people in the US to a greater extent than other countries only…

I always assumed that this disconnect was because most domestic u.s. air travel is business related, so that in general, the traveler is not the customer.

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 6'2" and my knees used to be painfully squeezed into seats and everything was incredibly uncomfortable on flights. At the time I weighed 275lb. I've since lost weight and I was surprised how much more comfortable flying is. You wouldn't think being obese would impact knees not having enough space, but my ass shrank in multiple directions and I have about four to five inches of free space now between the seat in f…

There is no normal height. https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...

> There is no normal height.

There more certainly is a statistically average height.

> Out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions.

This article is comparing 10 dimensions of variability and we're talking about just one here, the one you yourself mentioned, height.

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#396
post #260

Most business in the United States is done despite of management, not because of it. The executives lie and BS through all of it, and the soldiers on the ground kill themselves to get things done.

> Most business in the United States is done despite of management, not because of it. I would not consider that so Geographically constrained. to me the most obvious textbook example [1] would be Nokia. I mean, there was no way the top management could have failed in the golden era of the dumb phones given the engineering talent (both for the electronics and the operations) within th ecompany. The single time when t…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the news coverage of SpaceX’s first landing attempts, where they crashed into the barge and exploded and everyone was like “it’s a failure, it will never work”. Yeah but so much went right. I think it’s just the (well deserved) media narrative Boeing is in now. When you kill hundreds of people and then pretend it wasn’t your fault, you get what’s coming to you.

After SpaceX's failures, lots of people were saying things like "This is why they test— if you're not occassionally failing, you're not pushing the limits enough". I would guess that at least in part the difference in attitudes is because SpaceX is considered more startup-y and Boeing is more associated with the "failure is not an option" ethos.

SpaceX still put satellites in orbit. From what I understood, SpaceX tests the entire software where they simulate launches. Something such as different timers should've been caught already.

Anyway, I do not care too much about pointing fingers elsewhere. The parachute thing was quite embarrassing and IMO this problem should have been prevented as well.

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#398
post #260

Most business in the United States is done despite of management, not because of it. The executives lie and BS through all of it, and the soldiers on the ground kill themselves to get things done.

> The executives lie and BS through all of it, and the soldiers on the ground kill themselves to get things done. Why isn't this taught in public school?

[deleted]

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#399
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still a bit puzzled how cheerful some people seem about a product that was unable to fulfill its purpose: Starliner getting to its intended destination. Seems like they cheer that it stayed in one piece at least. Not too promising.

I’m not at all puzzled that a bunch of people commenting in a hacker forum don’t understand very much about engineering like this. Astronautical and aeronautical engineering are difficult. The fact that we’ve been in space 50-odd years doesn’t mean we’ve perfected anything to the point where we should expect a flawless mission on the first go even for something like this.

The suggested failure/problem was in the software side.

Re: Boeing CEO ousted as 737 Max crisis deepens

#400

Former Boeing employee here[1]: I remember when the company decided to do all 401k matching in Boeing stock in 2009. It seemed like a sketchy, borderline unethical way to keep the stock price afloat. All to say I’m happy to have transitioned all my 401k years ago! [1] I worked in the defense industry. Nothing to do with planes: my company was acquired by Boeing and operated relatively independently.

I remember when the company decided to do all 401k matching in Boeing stock in 2009. I thought that was the norm? I've only worked at one public company and they did matching in company stock as well - I'd periodically sell it and reinvest so only about 20% of my holdings was in company stock. I wish I'd kept more in their stock since they've done quite well.

That's definitely not the norm. A lot of companies offer ESPPs to buy their own stock at a discount, which is fine, but 401k matching in company stock instead of cash is a major red flag.
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