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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

#261

Post by chopin »

scns wrote: post #177
soylentnewsorg wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a gig at a hospital. They got an MBA Karen with 3 years of experience. She learned the very basics of IT, then started micromanaging. As in, she'd tell you what switches to put on CLI commands. If you said that's wrong, or would cause data corruption - you're not a team player. The entire team of 18 people were not team players - the team consisted of her alone. One time, she told me to do something very dange…

"The fish smells from the head" - turkish proverb

A German as well ("Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her").

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

#262

Post by himinlomax »

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…

It's not unstable, stop repeating this falsehood. It does behave differently when high trust is applied, pitching up much more, and MCAS was introduced to counter/hide that. Earlier models did pitch up as well, all planes with engines under low wings do, and pilots or automatic systems have to deal with it.

This is not an issue of instability. The plane will remain at a level pitch/roll at a given thrust with the appropriate elevator trimming. An unstable plane would require constant input changes.

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

#263

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

verve_rat wrote: post #242
asah wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this is a sauce effect of the complexity of modern systems: regulators have no choice but to trust companies and regulate the results of tests, with heavy penalties for cheating. Consider pharmaceutical trials: it's impractical for the FDA to check on each patient. Financial audits often assume the client isn't directly lying to the auditor, with criminal penalties as the disincentive. The alternative requi…

But in the case of aircraft we pay for that innovation and "progress" with dead bodies. Maybe it is time to rethink the cost/benefit of how we enforce these regulations.

We've always paid for innovation and progress with human lives. It's not as though that's a new phenomenon! To think we can get away with pushing forward the state of the art without a cost in blood is safetyism.

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

#264

Post by headco »

buildsjets wrote: post #105
WalterBright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Aviation Disasters" did a much better episode on it than Frontline.

The Frontline episode on PBS is 50% teary-eyed emotional testimonials from the victim’s families, interspersed with 25% stock footage and 25% poorly summarized, and in many cases technically incorrect explanation. The Smithsonian Channel Episode “Ten Steps to Disaster” is far more technically accurate, and also deep dives the technical, business, and regulatory decisions that lead to the disaster. https://www.smithso…

John Chidgey has an excellent episode of Causality covering the technicals in great detail.

https://engineered.network/causality/episode-33-737-max/

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

#265

Post by hef19898 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #257
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.

Of course the FDA has to regulate 10s of 1000s of companies\drugs\trials. The FAA basically just oversees Boeing and Airbus in the large commercial jet market and either offers 10s of models...

The FAA oversees every flying object in the US. Not just new models, but also config changes to existing models, continued airworthiness, all the design org and production org certification of manufacturers (per site) and suppliers (again, per site). Which is quite a workload, especially in a world as complex as aerospace.

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

#266

Post by ionwake »

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…

How come you were paid more when unemployed ?

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

#267

Post by HPsquared »

larrydag wrote: post #256
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…

Also this feels a lot like Boeing offering up a sacrificial lamb. I find it hard to believe that the FAA can focus on one person at Boeing as the reason for the failure in reporting the issue. There are too many managers and engineers involved. On the surface this sounds a lot like the Challenger disaster story.

Overall though, I'm at least happy some individuals are getting prosecuted, it sends a message that there are legal risks to individuals involved in this kind of thing, not just diluted corporate responsibility.

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

#268

Post by hef19898 »

yason wrote: post #169
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…

FAA could facilitate smoketesting and focus on parts they deem the most suspicious/experimental/new in a new airplane. And then outsource the actual tests to a third party.

By law, the certifiction activities done by the EASA (I assume the FAA is the same) cannot be done by third parties. It also worth noting, that the aircraft certification procedures worked pretty well for decades, up until Boeing started to lie to the FAA. Not sure how Boeing kept its design org approval after that.

EDIT: Some required activities by the organizations to be certified can be outsourced to third parties, the org itself is still accountable.

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

#269

Post by HPsquared »

user_7832 wrote: post #94
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…

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…

A pair of eyeballs, a brain and a set of teeth are all a regulator needs, in other words.

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

#270

Post by Randosaurus »

dash2 wrote: post #240
pgeorgi wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or they could be saying that centralized monopolies are rarely efficient. That is certainly my experience. For example, SpaceX undercut NASA by a factor of about 10, according to this FT report: https://www.ft.com/content/25e2292b-a910-41c8-9c55-09096895f...

NASA sources their materials from the private sector. The private sector is notoriously "price gougey" when it comes to government money.
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