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Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

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Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#131

Post by tw04 »

lazide wrote: post #106
user_7832 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you talk about the FAA doing thier own testing and validation is (unfortunately) almost impossible. Back in the 90s, a senior FAA official (I think a Director) had said something along the lines of “The FAA does not and cannot check everything, we just see that companies are doing their tests.” The FAA would require several times more manpower to be able to actually audit or test everything, and that is assuming…

That sounds like they are knowingly incompetent? If a utility regulator had no one on staff who knew how utility scale power transmission/generation/whatever worked, that’s what we’d call it for sure. And aerospace engineers are dirt cheap. What sort of clown show is the FAA running?

> That sounds like they are knowingly incompetent?

That sounds like they are knowingly underfunded, which they are.

> And aerospace engineers are dirt cheap.

They are? Where are all the airline startups? I assume they measure in the hundreds with all this dirt cheap talent running around.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#132

Post by Waterluvian »

lazide wrote: post #106
user_7832 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you talk about the FAA doing thier own testing and validation is (unfortunately) almost impossible. Back in the 90s, a senior FAA official (I think a Director) had said something along the lines of “The FAA does not and cannot check everything, we just see that companies are doing their tests.” The FAA would require several times more manpower to be able to actually audit or test everything, and that is assuming…

That sounds like they are knowingly incompetent? If a utility regulator had no one on staff who knew how utility scale power transmission/generation/whatever worked, that’s what we’d call it for sure. And aerospace engineers are dirt cheap. What sort of clown show is the FAA running?

I think you’re deeply misunderstanding the purpose of the FAA and the magnitude of the problem here.

Like almost every other agency (the FDA didn’t do the vaccine trials; are they incompetent too?) they don’t do the tests. They just police the industry.

Theoretically if you set laws and regulations and dole out severe punishment for bad behaviour, you don’t need to be the one running the tests.

People should want their government to run on trust (if their culture is compatible with trust) because it’s far cheaper and more efficient.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#133

Post by smackeyacky »

ceejayoz wrote: post #16
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will be doomed to repeating the mistake of the 737 Max. This article is about the 737 Max.

Yes? They’re saying that if there aren’t significant consequences for the C suite in this case, they’ll pick cost over safety again in the future.

I think it's worse than picking cost over safety. What Boeing did was knowingly push a bad position. They knew they were in the hole with the pilot training for the Max, they knew they had screwed up. Regardless of that, they kept pushing the line that it wasn't their fault right up until that became untenable. The issue here is a corporate culture that ignored red flags, that played games with the regulator and decided that they would gamble peoples lives and the entire company reputation (including all their employees) on a cost cutting, corrupt means of beating Airbus. The entire c-suite should be headed for orange jumpsuit land.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#134

Post by mjcarden »

throwanem wrote: post #12
tiahura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? He was lying to them as well.

> Steve Jobs told employees a short story when they were promoted to vice president at Apple. Jobs would tell the VP that if the garbage in his office was not being emptied, Jobs would naturally demand an explanation from the janitor. "Well, the lock on the door was changed,' the janitor could reasonably respond. "And I couldn't get a key." > The janitor's response is reasonable. It's an understandable excuse. The ja…

A quote from that excellent management training video, "A Bug's Life": First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#135

Post by cptskippy »

Cerium wrote: post #116
JshWright wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

laughes in healthcare

Not sure about your healthcare, but the healthcare company I work for is full of ex-aviation engineers who are happy to comply with our regulatory requirements.

I have something like 8 years worth of free credit monitoring from all of the healthcare providers who got breached lost my family's information.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#136

Post by jetrink »

dhx wrote: post #130

Internal Boeing e-mails between various Chief Technical Pilots and other Boeing staff are available at [1]. It shows that there was an overarching requirement for the program to to ensure that 737 pilots could fly the 737 MAX with minimal "Level B" training (e.g. no need for hours of simulator training). Per [2], MCAS was poorly designed and exhibited a failure mode (e.g. AOA sensor failure) that required immediate p…

One note: 'Yours truly' is typically used to refer to oneself, so it seems that you are claiming to be the indicted pilot.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#137

Post by mjevans »

dataflow wrote: post #111
user_7832 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you talk about the FAA doing thier own testing and validation is (unfortunately) almost impossible. Back in the 90s, a senior FAA official (I think a Director) had said something along the lines of “The FAA does not and cannot check everything, we just see that companies are doing their tests.” The FAA would require several times more manpower to be able to actually audit or test everything, and that is assuming…

It wouldn't require several times more manpower for the FAA to figure out there's something called MCAS that didn't exist before, would it? (Note that I'm talking in the current world we live in, not in a hypothetical world where Boeing would be a mortal enemy of the FAA doing everything within the stretch of human imagination to hide MCAS.)

It would be nice if the FAA were able to bill large companies making planes the public is intended to fly on commercially for all of the hours required to process the 'type certification' fully and exhaustively.

That process would include validating all aspects of the mechanical specifications and changes of parts (reused already OK parts from the same authorized suppliers would be a quick check-off), mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer software, and any changes for maintenance and end operators.

Describing it fully like that, I believe the only benefit to 'type certification' should be training for the end users, but major overhauls should require retraining and that should be caught.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#138

Post by landemva »

Waterluvian wrote: post #132
lazide wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like they are knowingly incompetent? If a utility regulator had no one on staff who knew how utility scale power transmission/generation/whatever worked, that’s what we’d call it for sure. And aerospace engineers are dirt cheap. What sort of clown show is the FAA running?

I think you’re deeply misunderstanding the purpose of the FAA and the magnitude of the problem here. Like almost every other agency (the FDA didn’t do the vaccine trials; are they incompetent too?) they don’t do the tests. They just police the industry. Theoretically if you set laws and regulations and dole out severe punishment for bad behaviour, you don’t need to be the one running the tests. People should want the…

'and dole out severe punishment for bad behaviour'

When will Boeing CEO and Board of Directors get locked up as part of the severe punishment?

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#139

Post by WalterBright »

ummonk wrote: post #122
whoknowswhat11 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? ERROR: Literally the first paragraph of the EAD is about controlling airspeed. [Edit: This is not correct] They hit 700(!!) MPH. They literally commanded full take off power to accelerate the plane into the ground. You can add power if your pitch is high to arrest a sink rate (ie, during landing), but if you are pitched down, you pull power. There is also a 300 second limit on T/O power - I'd be inter…

The first paragraph of the EAD is: "Disengage autopilot and control airplane pitch attitude with control column and main electric trim as required. If relaxing the column causes the trim to move, set stabilizer trim switches to CUTOUT. If runaway continues, hold the stabilizer trim wheel against rotation and trim the airplane manually."

The entire EAD must be read, not the first paragraph. Including the digressions (your phrase). It's only two pages.

I am not a pilot. But I am an aerospace engineer who worked on critical flight detail designs. You've likely flown on my work. My father was a pilot for the AF for 20 years. You don't get to be an old pilot if you don't pay attention 100% to the instructions and training. Flying isn't like driving a car. Humans are not natural flyers. You rarely get a second chance if you make a mistake flying.

Maybe 90% of flight training is dealing with emergencies. If you're not dedicated to doing it right, and doing it 100%, every time, you've got no business being a pilot with hundreds of lives depending on you.

P.S. I've gone flying with pilot friends many times. I watch them do the preflight. If they're not 100% perfect with it, I'm getting off.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#140

Post by CheezeIt »

pdonis wrote: post #65

While I don't have any sympathy for this pilot, I also find the FAA's excuses here to be less than convincing. Basically, their position is "Well, we trusted this Boeing employee to tell us the truth about the new flight controls, and he didn't." But if the regulators had actually done their job and independently evaluated the new flight controls, they wouldn't have had to take the word of any Boeing employees. I rea…

There is such thing as too much regulation. If they had more funding, that would lower industrial output simply by sucking engineers away from productive activity. That’s even if it doesn’t negatively affect aviation with too much regulation.
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