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Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

cnn.com

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Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#101

Post by csours »

growlist wrote: post #33
HenryKissinger wrote: post #15

I can't wait to read a senior Boeing manager's future book about the way the company mishandled the development of the 737 Max and how the upper echelons of decision makers managed the ensuing crisis. How many screaming matches occurred between VPs and engineering directors behind closed doors, how many angry emails were exchanged, how many panicked phone calls from the investor relations department to Muilenberg, et…

What's incredible to me is how this could be allowed to happen. Are the higher echelons of these industries staffed by charlatans? Has something changed in the engineering culture? Did greed override diligence and if so, how was this allowed to happen when the consequences can be so catastrophic both to passengers and to the company? It just doesn't make sense to me how, with such high stakes, a company could manage…

I've found real life to be very complicated and making good decisions to be difficult in cases with strongly competing goals.

It's very easy to see that the wrong decision was made in this case, but this is just one of thousands (or more) that were made in this program; much less the company as a whole.

So while this was definitely bad, it's much simpler to say "this decision was bad and you shouldn't done this" than it is to say "you shouldn't make bad decisions"

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#102

Post by gbear605 »

yread wrote: post #97
zaroth wrote: post #36

EDIT: And an hour after writing this Boeing just now announcing (surprise, surprise) they don’t expect return-to-service until July and stock is currently trading down 5.5%) I shorted BA for a few months based on many HN posts after the crashes, but covered my position after it seemed to stabilize at ~320. I think it will probably head lower, but as a general rule I try to find companies I believe in rather than comp…

They have 1300 total employees and only 24 review all of Boeing's planes? That's insane! What the fuck are the others doing? Can't be all HR (no offense to HR)

There are more airplane manufacturers than Boeing (although none of Boeings stature other than Airbus)

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#103

Post by missosoup »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

> That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

Yeah you will. Good luck selectively avoiding the most popular international route plane. Historically, people have been very quick to forget mishaps with particular airframes and revert to flying the most convenient/economical routes.

And by the time it's flying again, it will be hands down the safest plane that's being operated because every minute detail of it will have been checked with far more scrutiny than any other newly launched platform.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#104

Post by grenoire »

paulmd wrote: post #39
grenoire wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a new way to bypass this; FF recently missed an autoplay video on Bloomberg (?). Arms race as usual.

You can't autostart it when the page loads anymore, but you can autostart it as soon as the user interacts with the page in any way (including scroll)

My settings for these are not the defaults, I didn't get the option to block autoplays on the domain menu.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#105

Post by kawfey »

samstave wrote: post #83

ELI5: why can’t the auto safety system be removed and the plane be sound? Is the design so flawed that it can’t be safely flown by a human without this system that causes random catastrophic failures?

It's like if you replaced your 2015 car with a new, but heavier 2020 model. Since its heavier, but has the same braking system as the 2015 model, it has a longer braking distance. To remedy that the engineers put in a "braking characteristics augmentation system" (BCAS) to augment the braking power applied, so that it stops sooner than a person normally would. It uses a single camera and computer vision to detect obstacles ahead. The car company didn't think they need to tell its drivers about it. One day you'll be driving and all of a sudden come to a screeching halt (and maybe cause a wreck) and come to find out the camera was obscured by a precise strike of bird poop.

The car company could have either A) told and trained their drivers at the dealership to brake harder than normal, B) used a two-camera backup system, or C) redesigned the brakes to accommodate for the increased vehicle weight.

MCAS is basically that. It makes the MAX8 maneuver and behave just like the previous 737 models, even though the larger engine and more forward placement causes it to fly somewhat differently in certain situations. The failures came from the lack of training and understanding of the system as well as a flawed implementation using input from only a single sensor instead of two. Without MCAS, they would have required a significant amount of training and possibly re certification, which costs at least a few billion dollars more than a few hundred lines of code (but unfortunately a lot less than 346 people's lives and many many billions of dollars of follow-on debt).

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#106

Post by ttcbj »

asah wrote: post #6
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

that's fine - but 99% of everybody else will fly a 737 Max for $x less and after 1-3 months of no reported incidents.

I agree that I don't want to fly them. The DC-10 had a similarly bad safety record:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Cargo_...

It seems to have continued on for several years, though ultimate its poor safety record seems to have been a factor in its discontinuation.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#107

Post by thereare5lights »

heavymark wrote: post #3
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

Yes, I imagine the rebranding will be as ineffective as Comcast rebranding as Xfinity, where everyone knows they are the same.

I've never understood the comcast hate. I've been using Xfinity for years and it's been very reliable and fast. My only gripe is the price.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#108

Post by _ea1k »

heavymark wrote: post #3
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

Yes, I imagine the rebranding will be as ineffective as Comcast rebranding as Xfinity, where everyone knows they are the same.

As much as I dislike Comcat/Xfinity, I don't think they are hurting at all.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#109

Post by tptacek »

zaroth wrote: post #36

EDIT: And an hour after writing this Boeing just now announcing (surprise, surprise) they don’t expect return-to-service until July and stock is currently trading down 5.5%) I shorted BA for a few months based on many HN posts after the crashes, but covered my position after it seemed to stabilize at ~320. I think it will probably head lower, but as a general rule I try to find companies I believe in rather than comp…

Your claim here is that FAA's Certification practice has been hollowed out, but your evidence is that it's been funded consistently. Can you further support the claim? 230MM is less than 0.2% of DoT's budget; what would the incentive have been to downsize it?

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#110

Post by jaywalk »

thereare5lights wrote: post #107
heavymark wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I imagine the rebranding will be as ineffective as Comcast rebranding as Xfinity, where everyone knows they are the same.

I've never understood the comcast hate. I've been using Xfinity for years and it's been very reliable and fast. My only gripe is the price.

Comcast used to do some pretty bad stuff, but they've definitely cleaned up their act. I've been a customer for 10+ years, and have had zero significant issues with my service.
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