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Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

justice.gov

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

#221

Post by roenxi »

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…

> ...a warning to everyone that that method of regulation is not acceptable.

What part of the situation here is unacceptable? There were, I believe, 2 crashes. We accept more than that with most modes of transport. It isn't obvious that tightening the regulatory process is a net win.

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

#222

Post by mkhpalm »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #179
dsq wrote: post #164

It is important to note that Boeing settled for 2.5 billion in which it is agreed that "...the misconduct by its former employees was “neither pervasive across the organization, nor undertaken by a large number of employees, nor facilitated by senior management". ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-reaches-2-5-billion-sett... ). So remember, when push comes to shove, the technical lead always gets thrown to the wol…

It's possible this is the initial charge to get them in the door with search warrants and subpoenas and testimony because someone dropped a dime with some info that there were criminal acts not know to the government at the time, not covered by the settlement. I doubt the settlement was a "you're pardoned for ALL acts related to 737 MAX." A refresher since this happened so long ago: Airbus was eating Boeing's 737 sal…

They didn't cheap out on lights. They didn't want to add a light to the cockpit because changing anything meant pilots would have to be trained on it. Airlines, specifically American, didn't want to incur the cost of training of a new plane that could compete with Airbus. So to get the sales Boeing promised a million dollar kickback per 737 MAX sold if American 737 pilots had to get training to fly it. The cockpit had to remain the same in every way to avoid it.

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

#223

Post by mvc »

smnrchrds wrote: post #120
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…

I don't think this style of regulation is limited to FAA. FDA does not independently test all drugs either. They just review and ensure the drug companies' tests are acceptable.

I'm afraid this is the logical consequence of a majority of people falling for the lie that "government can't do things as efficiently as the private sector".

When people vote for politicians who say

  "government is wasteful",
  "there's too much red tape"
what did they think was going to happen?

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

#224

Post by pgeorgi »

mvc wrote: post #223
smnrchrds wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this style of regulation is limited to FAA. FDA does not independently test all drugs either. They just review and ensure the drug companies' tests are acceptable.

I'm afraid this is the logical consequence of a majority of people falling for the lie that "government can't do things as efficiently as the private sector". When people vote for politicians who say "government is wasteful", "there's too much red tape" what did they think was going to happen?

When politicians say "government is wasteful" or "government can't do things as efficiently as the private sector", what they're saying is that their management style is wasteful.

Would somebody asserting that about _their_ _own_ _job_ even make it past the interview in the private sector?

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

#225

Post by fxtentacle »

hef19898 wrote: post #199
dsq wrote: post #164

It is important to note that Boeing settled for 2.5 billion in which it is agreed that "...the misconduct by its former employees was “neither pervasive across the organization, nor undertaken by a large number of employees, nor facilitated by senior management". ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-reaches-2-5-billion-sett... ). So remember, when push comes to shove, the technical lead always gets thrown to the wol…

Boeing got away with that, VW tried and didn't. I would prefer companies not getting away with these settlements.

That might be because VW wasn't US-based, but Boeing is.

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

#226

Post by rightbyte »

mvc wrote: post #223
smnrchrds wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this style of regulation is limited to FAA. FDA does not independently test all drugs either. They just review and ensure the drug companies' tests are acceptable.

I'm afraid this is the logical consequence of a majority of people falling for the lie that "government can't do things as efficiently as the private sector". When people vote for politicians who say "government is wasteful", "there's too much red tape" what did they think was going to happen?

I think the worlds greatest agency couldn't evaluate a so complex system as the Max. They should just have said no.

I believe it is foremost a complexity issue, and the MCAS(?) failure is just one of the many things that could go wrong, that actually did. Boing probably have more issues with the plane that is waiting to surface given their culture ...

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

#227

Post by hef19898 »

sofixa wrote: post #178
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the airframe was fine. the problem was that mcas was implemented in a totally shitty way. If it had just replied on 3 sensors instead of 1, wet likely wouldn't be talking about it now.

No, the airframe was different and didn't handle the same way as the old one. In order to hide that, Boeing implemented in a terribly negligent way MCAS. Had they accepted it's a different one, and had a different type rating, all would have been fine.

The 737 airframe reached a point where it was not compatible anymore with modern engines. When the 737 was designed, engines where a lot smaller, the nwer turbofans simply don't fit under the wings of a 737 anymore, so they had to be moved forward. That changed flight characteristics, Boeing used MCAS to compensate for that. If I remember correctly, on-board systems of 737 had issues with handling a second sensor for MCAS (someone with more knowledge please skim in). So they went with that config, they went, as we see in the messages from the chief tech pilot, to forgo major re-certification and thus decided to hide MCAS true nature and impact from the FAA. Consequently, they also hid it from EASA since FAA and EASA basically trusted each others certifications.

Boeing, if you ask me, committed a cardinal sin in aerospace. They cut corners, ignored redundancy, lied to regulators and as a result directly caused airframe losses killing crew and passengers. And that after decades of efforts to increase safety. All that just to save money and maybe keep market share.

Had they just done all the proper testing and development they did after the aircraft losses upfront none of that would have happened.

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

#228

Post by hef19898 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #225
hef19898 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing got away with that, VW tried and didn't. I would prefer companies not getting away with these settlements.

That might be because VW wasn't US-based, but Boeing is.

That might have played a role. Plus Boeing, as part of duopoly on commercial aircraft, seems to be a lot more important than a simple, regardless of size, car maker.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

soylentnewsorg wrote: post #204
bloqs wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm puzzled by the do not discriminate bit, doesn't that mean you do discriminate by only choosing the names you can't pronounce? Minutae aside, as a European I'm shocked and appalled at that process, but surely an employment tribunal would have been the next step? Seems open and shut if you have the details to hand and everything evidenced properly. That said I'm sure you probably didn't want to be there from that p…

I only took the gig so I could get the vaccine as soon as it came out. It was a huge pay cut, and a very easy job. Why fight to stay and keep working somewhere you don't want to be, when instead you could get an extra 3k/month on unemployment? Corporations are a useful thing, and are commonly used stateside to do shady things - like getting paid by a customer, but not officially working. Like collect unemployment, wh…

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by 2rsf »

mvc wrote: post #223
smnrchrds wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this style of regulation is limited to FAA. FDA does not independently test all drugs either. They just review and ensure the drug companies' tests are acceptable.

I'm afraid this is the logical consequence of a majority of people falling for the lie that "government can't do things as efficiently as the private sector". When people vote for politicians who say "government is wasteful", "there's too much red tape" what did they think was going to happen?

I don't think so, testing like you refer to is not scalable and even more inefficient.

Letting an external auditors understand all the small technical details and test them independently will basically halt any progress. It might make this specific change safer but for the long run will slow down innovation and development of better and safer products.

This has some similarity to software development- we test much better but prefer to move faster to achieve a better overall quality and be able to fix issues faster and better

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