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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

#311

Post by rbanffy »

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…

Dance like nobody's watching.

Email like it will one day be read aloud at a deposition.

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

#312

Post by kqr »

antihero wrote: post #255
kqr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say it is 0.1 on average, and the FAA would need 5 years just to test. That gives you an expected wait time of 10 years to get something tested, and 20 years if you include development time. I'm sure the industry benefits from lower turnaround times than that.

I would imagine they could test multiple planes at the same time.

Sure. So you take half the staff and put them on testing a second plane. Then each individual plane takes 10 years to test instead. (Remember that you don't gain person-hours for free just by shuffling people around.)

What would this accomplish? Instead of a total system time average of 10 years, you now get an average testing time of 10 years to which you still need to add the queuing time, so you're even worse off than before.

(The queueing time won't be five years with two servers in parallel, and I can't do the exact approximations in my head, but it'll be at least two years. In other words, by testing in parallel you worsen the cycle time from 20 years to at least 22 years.)

This is a good general rule: by taking on more work in parallel, you'll make the turnaround time worse. This is why lean consultants go on about limiting work-in-progress.

Also a call to learn some basic queuing theory! It comes in handy often.

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

#314

Post by OneLeggedCat »

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…

This man did exactly what he was paid by Boeing to do. It would be great if he could speak publicly about who pressured him to make these decisions.

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

#315

Post by lazide »

nuerow wrote: post #308
lazide wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, that doesn’t sound like it? 1) Boeing lays off thousands of aerospace engineers regularly (they did as part of the max disaster), and doesn’t rehire them all back - the industry is highly cyclical, and Boeing is periodically shifting locations anyway 2) the stated concern was Boeing brass was applying undue influence to engineering correct? If those folks worked for the FAA directly after being laid off , wouldn’…

> Eh, that doesn’t sound like it? It should, as it was what I said. I'm really not sure if it's possible to make a point any clearer. > Boeing lays off thousands of aerospace engineers regularly (...) Sounds in line with the classical big corp style of management. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with humans not being the critical element of providing a service. In fact, are you sure you're not supporting the…

You said that the FAA would be causing brain drain - in a field where thousands get laid off all the time?

And that Boeing would surely be exerting influence on them so they wouldn’t catch issues - after Boeing laid them off?

And that it wouldn’t matter having competent engineers at the FAA because catching things require expensive tests - that the engineers if they existed at the FAA could mandate Boeing pay for, since they would know they needed them to do them?

Huh?

No one is saying the FAA should be running a full parallel aerospace program. I’m saying if they lack in house competency to call bullshit on what a player they are regulating is passing to them and relying on that player to just always do the right thing, then they are not effective regulators

It would be like taking Facebooks word that they are totally being good privacy wise, and not having anyone available who understands internet tracking or adtech. Which, is of course another failing regulator (looking at you FTC), but at least that doesn’t get hundreds of people killed in giant fireballs?

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

#316

Post by desertedisland »

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…

Well the FAA discovered the pilot lied and now the pilot is in serious ** with his career and reputation destroyed: I'm assuming he is looking at possible jail time (not a lawyer).

I'd say this is a serious deterrent to pilots contemplating similar action in the future but I don't think the problem was with the FAA or this pilot. The real problem was the senior management at Boeing who made the conscious decision to put profits ahead of safety. Thus they were directly responsible for creating a culture of short cuts and cheating which lead to the ending of several hundred lives.

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

#317

Post by lazide »

ethbr0 wrote: post #309
lazide wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof, even worse than I noted. So median (and that includes established mid and late career aerospace engineers too) is $118k all in? That’s roughly half of the initial comp for an entry level software engineer at any of the SV firms, and most folks will be making much more than that at said SV firms within a couple years. Being able to get a team of 4-5 experienced and credentialed aerospace engineers for the comp of…

You realize you just compared Silicon Valley software engineer salaries in high margin industries to all location aerospace engineer salaries in normal margin industries? If you want to baseline off SV salaries, you shouldn't be looking at median all-AE numbers.

You’re the one that provided the numbers?

We’re on a SV startup website, where the comparison to cheap or not is of course going to be based on this.

You provided as a counterpoint to my statement on aerospace eng’s being cheap, data which shows median salary across all experience levels of the field being half the starting pay of a typical entry level SV software engineer - which typically requires no specific credentials, unlike Aerospace engineering.

If there is a large cluster of companies who pay 4x the median aerospace engineer salary to Noobs, then please provide said data. My understanding is those don’t exist.

SpaceX, a high profile name and maybe the closest to a SV type place you’ll get in the industry pays between $70-100k to their Aerospace engineers, based on multiple sites. Here happens to be a random Reddit thread about it in the first couple results.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/engineering/co...]

Which is exactly the point I’m making. When a straight out of school software engineer has a whole section of an industry they can go to that will pay them 2-5x what an experienced aerospace engineer mid-point or even late in their career can make ANYWHERE (except MAYBE a one-off consulting gig somewhere), then aerospace engineers are cheap no?

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

#318

Post by sdhfjgjh »

samhw wrote: post #283
jkfdrsak wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government actors are responsible for acquiring material at normative costs. Their failure to do so is their own.

Normal costs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection

"Price gougey" implies that the prices are unethical; not in compliance with ethical norms; not normative.

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

#319

Post by ncmncm »

verve_rat wrote: post #244
kiklion wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can be done, it just costs money. Well money and time. You speak as if you think that if only the great billionaires accepted a little less money then we could have safety. How many lives are you willing to lose for a multi year delay to accommodate the FDA recreating every required test that the pharmaceutical company did? How many lives are currently lost because the current system doesn’t work? Your suggestio…

Did society decide this distribution of resources? Or was it lobbying?

Our society, as presently organized, delegates that choice to lobbyists. That is one failing.

The problem with the FAA vs Boeing is not that the system is designed around the (correct!) assumption that the public's and FAA's interests, on one hand, and Boeing's interests on the other are aligned. This failure cost Boeing enormously!

What was not aligned were Boeing's interests and Boeing upper management interests. The pervasive failure of our society to force CxOs to align with the companies they run and with society at large is much bigger than just in aviation.

That some pilot was indicted, but not the management he was responsive to, is a glaring indicator of this failing.

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

#320

Post by soylentnewsorg »

ionwake wrote: post #266
soylentnewsorg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

I was paid much less than my salary when I was unemployed. I made more per week from the salary than I did per month on unemployment. I assume you mean more than someone else you know who had UI. The benefit amount depends on your salary. UI is insurance paid by the company that fired you - in essence the company that fired you pays your unemployment (by paying for the insurance for their employees). The more people the lay off or fire w/o cause, the more their insurance premium. In addition, there was an extra benefit paid by the federal government due to the pandemic (unemployment is usually a state benefit).

So the way to both stick it to the asshole ex-employer and make extra cash, is to double-dip. Get paid unemployment, while getting other income. If you own a company, you don't have to be employed by your company - you can just be an owner - like when you buy Apple stock. You can then pay yourself dividends instead of salary, and bam - you're still unemployed, while getting the same amount as your salary, and unemployment. You do have to keep looking for work, daily though. Which I did do. So, think of it as a legal loophole to screw the guy who fired you and make money off him.

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