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Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

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121–130 of 247 posts

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. To be fair, after this the Max is likely to be one of the most intensively studied and prepped planes in existence for pilots who might have to fly one. Pilots don't want to die either.

How can all the study and preparation of a pilot help in a catastrophic mechanical failure caused by some likely design flaw that still is not apparent?

The design of individual components is quite tested and actually most of them have a long history of performance as they have been in use for a long time. On the other hand, I'm not confident on the design and integration of those components in the whole package.

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

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, flying in MAX was/would still be orders of magnitude safer than pretty much any other transportation method outside flying. (No, I don't think I still want to fly that, either)

From my back of the envelope calculations at the time of the second crash they had worse safety than a car. Did you run the actual numbers?

I'm confident I'm a safer driver than at least 50% of the people on the roads - if I thought pilots were only as safe as an average driver I'd be worried.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Boeing is a company of national importance and also a monopoly on home turf, vital to the US security and economy so they're untouchable in the US. Just like how no VW employee went to jail in Germany for emissions cheating.

Lets not forget that some actually got to go to prison[0]. [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/vw-execut...

That happened in a US court but VW's CEO and a few other top execs were also criminally indicted in Germany. I think it's still ongoing so no outcome yet.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VW wasn't nearly as bad. People need to go to jail over those deaths and their legacy used as a reminder for those that come next. Here is another damning Boeing message, follow the source for more: https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1215558552229683200

As bad by what metric? VWs emissions overshoot has been projected to cause 1200 deaths: http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deat...

For most people actual deaths are more immediately apparent than estimated deaths. By driving a car, riding a bus, or taking a plane any regular person also contributes to some of those estimated deaths. But this is very different from causing direct deaths by knowingly disabling a safety feature on a car, plane, or bus for example.

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

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot He's one who really needs to go to jail. Why didn't they name him?

Because Boeing is a company of national importance and also a monopoly on home turf, vital to the US security and economy so they're untouchable in the US. Just like how no VW employee went to jail in Germany for emissions cheating.

Not true. Several actually went to jail, including the former boss of Audi, Rupert Stadler. However, their trials are yet to come, so no final decision on jail time yet.

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pilot lingo there are four levels of trust in a pilot (ascending order): 1. I won't fly with you 2. I will fly with you 3. I will fly with you and take my shoes off during take off 4. I will let my family fly with you. This phrase used verbatim means quite a lot.

If what you’re saying is true, this is a full reversal in the meaning of the leaked conversation. You’re implying the employees not only trust the MAX, their trust is such that they are comfortable kicking back with their shoes off on a flight.

Shoes = evacuation ready.

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

#128
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Talk as much crap as you want in person, but what goes in email and web messages and pull-requests and code comments must be immaculate.

Even in person, you shouldn't talk crap all the time. It creates a toxic culture.

I have companys talking good things about themselve all the time. Its like a PR-Talkshow. The tech is rotten to the core, and its constantly failing - resulting in massive tech debt.

Words are like money, if you print them with no backing up value, you might aswell save the paper. The design of the backnotes does little to the value.

But if you print "Why mar currency? Cause we can." on the notes, the customers might appreciate the honesty, and give you back a little of another currency that is trust.

I do not trust any company talk anymore at all. So print all the money you want, but you cant buy anything in my shop, thank you.

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

#129
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot He's one who really needs to go to jail. Why didn't they name him?

The further down the PDF I go, the more I agree with you. Here's another one of his quotes: > There is absolutely no reason to require your pilots to require a Max simulator to begin flying the Max. Once the engines are started, there is only one difference between NG and Max procedurally, and that is that there is no OFF position of the gear handle. Boeing does not understand what is to be gained by a 3h simulator s…

This makes me angry.

Not that 3 hours of simulator training would have helped in either crash. The problem wasn't that the ipad course was inadequate training for the new procedures (as he said there were no major procedural differences), but that any mention of MCAS had been removed from the manual to avoid needing new or modified procedures.

Even worse, MCAS was designed to be near-impossible to override, using data from only one sensor, to avoid the need for procedural changes.

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

#130

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 wha…

Also, this prophecy didn't come true. If anything it was completely ass-backwards - it's about the quality of the 737 MAX sim, not the plane itself, and it looks like Boeing's engineers believed internally that Boeing shouldn't have pushed so hard to release it given that existing 737 pilots didn't need simulator training on the MAX and felt safer flying on the MAX with pilots trained on the NG than they did about flying with MAX-simulator trained pilots. You may recall that the general narrative is that the crashes were, in part, the result of Boeing's desire to avoid MAX-specific simulator training.
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