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Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

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Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#61

Post by dgzl »

noodlesUK wrote: post #44

'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on…

That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it works in a massive structure. Someone at one end thinks the values and ethic is one way, and the people at the other end have an entirely different understanding.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#63

Post by comex »

elliekelly wrote: post #47
AmericanChopper wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I’ve ragged on my employers in DMs, and will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs. Providing my opinions in such channels is part of what I’m paid to do. If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, manages to majorly mess something up, and my comments come back to haunt them, why is that my problem?

> why is that my problem? This kind of attitude is the problem. You’re supposed to be working together toward the same goal. As a team. A team of “not my problem” people who are working only towards their own individual goals (or worse, CYA) is the most toxic team that can exist.

The beginning of the sentence:

> If my employer doesn’t heed my advice,

I think the OP’s assumption – or at least hope – is that if they identify a problem so severe that disclosure would be a serious liability, then their employer will heed their advice, and fix it. The shared goal is producing quality results, not covering anyone’s ass (either OP’s or their employer’s) when they don’t.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#64

Post by noodlesUK »

dgzl wrote: post #61
noodlesUK wrote: post #44

'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on…

That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it work…

There’s a difference between knowing something that would improve a system and knowing that there are specific flaws with a significant degree of lethality. It should be acceptable to miss someone telling you the first (if perhaps a missed opportunity), but it’s negligent to miss the second. It sounds to me that these people were taken aback and appalled by the cavalier attitude towards safety. If you have a decent number of professionals telling you something is unsafe and you ignore their cries, and then you kill people, you’ve fucked up in a big way.

Edit: more to my original point though, the response should be to improve internal processes to prevent this kind of tragedy again, rather than to throw the people doing the right thing by speaking up under the bus, saying it’s against company culture to call out dangerous risks.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#65

Post by antpls »

Other quote from the reuters article (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by...) :

“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to MAX,” Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot said in a March 2017 email.

“Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#66

Post by optimiz3 »

dgzl wrote: post #61
noodlesUK wrote: post #44

'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on…

That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it work…

For every truly insightful potential whistle-blower, you have plenty of disgruntled Peter-principle know-it-alls.

Still, it's management's job to create an environment that distills signal from noise.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#67

Post by CaptainZapp »

With that pustule breaking up, releasing more and more of that really evil, stinking and ugly slime I start to wonder if that plane goes into service ever again.

Maybe the FAA will yield to poltical pressure. But I can't imagine any other certification agency accepting responsibility for any accident occurring on their watch now that more and more about the ugly, incompetent, fraudulent and outright evil engineering process for that death trap comes to light.

A plane only certified by the FAA is essentially dead.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#68

Post by lgeorget »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?

Not that I want to defend Boeing, but it's easy to play Nostradamus and predict catastrophies to then only dig up the prophecies if they turn up true. The article doesn't say how much the claims were substantiated and backed up by the concerned employees.

Looking back, Boeing certainly should have investigated the claims more seriously but just from reading the article I feel we don't have a very clear picture of what happened.

Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

#69

Post by restlessdesign »

noodlesUK wrote: post #44

'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on…

I came back to the comments to reference this exact quote! If the actions are inconsistent with Boeing values, then Boeing has the wrong values.
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