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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

#191
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here on hn, on the other hand, there are plenty of people that say that they don’t see any problem in flying on the max once it is again in service. From my point of view I’ll happily let them be the guinea pigs while I’ll avoid at all costs to fly on that death machine.

As long as they give pilots proper training, I'd actually rather fly on the recertified MAX than certain other Boeing planes. They have gone though the whole plane with a fine toothed comb, Identifying any other potential problems. It will probably be the safest Boeing in the sky. This whole MAX situation has made me very nervous about flying on the 787 (built in the same era) or the 737 NG (while it lacks MCAS, some…

>They have gone though the whole plane with a fine toothed comb,

Are we sure this is happening? This is a modified airplane so they are checking the new addition but are they checking say the wheels or all the screws because some forces might be different and numbers changed and everything should be redone.

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

#192

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 guess I should have been more prudent. Some time ago I recall reading here at HN some crude calculations about this where I got this impression.

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

#193

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?

I feel that particular quote is taken out of context a bit. The line immediately preceding it is: > Another damning exchange calls into question the safety of the 737 Max long before the plane was approved to fly passengers. It’s the quality of the finished product I care about, not the quality of the product at some unspecified point during R&D.

The Washington Post article says that quote was from 2018, contrary to your speculation that it was some long-ago comment that is no longer relevant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/int...

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

#195
I worked with Boeing during the 00's. It's when they started outsourcing everything including IT.

Holy shit this goes deeper than I thought and some people are heavily cleaning Wikipedia.

Didn't even know about this bit stealing rocket tech.: https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re...

Also check out: Darleen Druyun https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-probe-intensifi...

Phil Condit was ousted over Darleen and that's why Harry was brought in... although the Wikipedia page doesn't mention any of this...fu wikipedia. He was not "retired" he was forced out and Boeing was banned from Space Contracts for 5 years.

Damn I wish I save all those news articles. Whoever said the Internet is forever is wrong! The Internet is fickle ...some things will be memes forever and others will be forgotten.

And here's what happened to Harry Stonecipher: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111019724886272076

So much for "cleaning" up the company culture. F Boeing. The company not the engineers. I also know some very talented people there.

[Edit Note:1] The WSJ link should not be paywalled as it's an old article...at least it wasn't for me.

[Edit Note:2] The WSJ link is very detailed about what went down if it ends up blocked/paywalled I will...f'ck it I will edit wikipedia....grrrrr history is not fickle and Condit was and is an ass.

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

#196
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here on hn, on the other hand, there are plenty of people that say that they don’t see any problem in flying on the max once it is again in service. From my point of view I’ll happily let them be the guinea pigs while I’ll avoid at all costs to fly on that death machine.

As long as they give pilots proper training, I'd actually rather fly on the recertified MAX than certain other Boeing planes. They have gone though the whole plane with a fine toothed comb, Identifying any other potential problems. It will probably be the safest Boeing in the sky. This whole MAX situation has made me very nervous about flying on the 787 (built in the same era) or the 737 NG (while it lacks MCAS, some…

This [0] makes me nervous about flying on a 787.

[0] https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/boeing-787-dreamliner-safet...

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define bad. As a cyclist in Europe I breathe in fumes from VWs diesel engines on a daily basis. I'm wondering how shorter the lifespan for me and others like me will be in the long run. I'd say that's pretty bad but as the deaths are not instantaneous, the long term damage is difficult to quantify.

My suggestion is to just stop doing it, especially if you start sleeping worse (the first symptom if you're affected). My life was ruined by not caring about living near a highway even though I easily had the money to get into a better apartment. Now for the past 5 years (I'm 38 now) my life is about trying to find places with clean enough air, which is much harder and more expensive in winter time. I'm always lookin…

Thanks for the tips. Where do you live now?

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

#198
post #37

Wow, this article is full of amazing quotes. I highly recommend reading the entire thing. My favorite one I haven't seen posted yet > "I still haven't been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year," one employee says in 2018, referring to an exchange of information with the FAA. Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently.

> Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently. What amazes me is that the same thing is happening with Tesla, but HN hardly bats an eye, because Silicon Valley: https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-push-to-build-a-self-dri... Engineers speaking up and getting fired or resigning. What's worse is that, as opposed to having a choice to fly on a 737 MAX,…

There is a very fundamental difference. The Tesla autopilot is a mere driving assist system. Like with plain cruise control, the driver is still fully in charge and needs to pay enough attention to take over at any moment. All accidents happened because drivers were not paying attention at all.

With the Boeing, the MCAS system put the 737 in a flight state which trained pilots couldn't recover from.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suggestion is to just stop doing it, especially if you start sleeping worse (the first symptom if you're affected). My life was ruined by not caring about living near a highway even though I easily had the money to get into a better apartment. Now for the past 5 years (I'm 38 now) my life is about trying to find places with clean enough air, which is much harder and more expensive in winter time. I'm always lookin…

Thanks for the tips. Where do you live now?

Right now I'm in a boutique hotel in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on the beach.

Last year I was in small cities in Colombia, like Pereira or Armenia in small hotels/AirBnb-s far from the city center.

I can't live in big cities anymore, and I'm really missing it.

I'd like to go to Australia as well, but I'm afraid of the air pollution due to forest fires.

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend Boeing or the folks in these messages in any way, but as I understand it MCAS initially was making use of multiple sensors. It was changed at one point to only use 1[1]. It would be important to know the timing of these messages relative to the development. Another _unverified_ thing I heard was that initially MCAS would only be able to issue a single nose down command, and was later modified to be able…

From what I understand, the decision to change it from using 2 sensors to 1 sensor was specifically because if the system used 2 sensors it was considered a safety system requiring simulator training for the failure scenarios. IMO Boeing should be required to separate the military and civilian parts of the company and allow the military side to build civilian aircraft based on existing civilian models. I honestly thi…

Restructuring is a prudent proposal, but jail time is needed.
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