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US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

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Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#21

Post by ajcp »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #11
gmerc wrote: post #4

What’s there to consider even - political connections?

The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. The people with the expertise all work for aircraft manufacturers. And odds are the FAA will never pay anyone enough to leave the manufacturers to do the job.

There are other ways to solution for the same outcome, or get closer to it.

Pass regulation that requires audit and certification by a rated and licensed authority that isn't necessarily the government itself. As a publicly traded company Boeing already has to do this with its books; why not with its product too?

I'm sure that E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, or PwC would love a crack at a new market and they've certainly got the money to hire away from manufacturers.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#22

Post by wolverine876 »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #11
gmerc wrote: post #4

What’s there to consider even - political connections?

The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. The people with the expertise all work for aircraft manufacturers. And odds are the FAA will never pay anyone enough to leave the manufacturers to do the job.

> The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise.

Do you know a basis for that? My understanding, though limited, is that they have incredible expertise - and we can see their outstanding results. Also, IME, this claim is used by many industries to assert that they shouldn't be subject to regulation, and (IME) it's always false.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#23

Post by rkangel »

dmurray wrote: post #17
brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

Stockbroking, cinema, accountancy, law, life insurance, financial planning, nuclear power, real estate, medicine, advertising, media...[0][1] Self-regulation (especially at the industry level rather than delegating to individual companies) doesn't seem completely broken. Actually it can work quite well. You keep some oversight, and reserve the right for the state regulator to step in if the SRO goes bad. The people w…

An industry regulating itself is different from an organisation regulating itself.

Self regulation of the industry is common as you say. It tends to involve one central body enforcing the standards on the members, and acting as a central point for agreement of the standards.

This is not the case with the Aviation regulation. The FAA is the regulator, and has delegated the testing to the people it is meant to be regulating.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#24

Post by hn8305823 »

bombcar wrote: post #14
brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

The vast majority of industries are practically self-inspected, even when inspectors exist. For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record. Same with building inspections, they're no where near detailed and long enough to c…

> For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record.

This doesn't always end well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1031_Canal#Partial_collapse_du...

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#25

Post by mc32 »

game_the0ry wrote: post #5

Finally, after a couple of plane crashes, fantastic investigative journalism, and a door blowing off mid flight (thankfully that was caught on video and shared). Too little, too late. We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either.

Better late than not at all. I welcome a stringed regime of regulation for aircraft manufacturers and operators.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#26

Post by game_the0ry »

wolverine876 wrote: post #19
game_the0ry wrote: post #5

Finally, after a couple of plane crashes, fantastic investigative journalism, and a door blowing off mid flight (thankfully that was caught on video and shared). Too little, too late. We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either.

> We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either. We should have oversight, and we do, but it's hard to pick a worse example of bad regulation (or a better example of good regulation) than the FAA. Air travel safety is extraordinary.

[flagged]

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#27

Post by bombcar »

hn8305823 wrote: post #24
bombcar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of industries are practically self-inspected, even when inspectors exist. For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record. Same with building inspections, they're no where near detailed and long enough to c…

> For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record. This doesn't always end well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1031_Canal#Partial_collapse_du...

Nothing always ends up well every time, it's about making the balances and allocating resources where they best serve. This is the perpetual policy problem around things like OSHA and other regulatory bodies.

One question might be if the airlines should be able to inspect their own equipment, or be required to pay the government to do the inspections, instead.

Way more planes have fallen out of the sky due to bad airline maintenance/inspections than have crashed because of Boeing stupidity.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#28

Post by class3shock »

brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

This is pretty common in aerospace, defense and, I imagine, alot of other government facing industries. For something like this the inspection procedure is likely approved by the government and verification it's being performed properly is done with lots of submitted and retained paperwork. So maybe less judge and jury and more private vs public attorney filing the same motion. Yes, they could have biases but they both are performing the same task, based on the same laws.

Of course that doesn't always stop mistakes/negligence (see this incident) or bad actors (see below): https://news.usni.org/2020/06/19/navy-has-mitigated-risk-of-...

I will also add that just because something is inspected by the government does not insure quality. Usually failures in inspection are due to inexperienced and/or overworked inspectors, higher ups pushing to "get things through" or to reduce costs, or other banal reasons just as possible to occur whether it's Uncle Sam or Boeing writing the inspectors checks.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#29

Post by jgeada »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #9
gmerc wrote: post #4

What’s there to consider even - political connections?

Does the faa have enough qualified staff and budget to review boeings planes? Does anyone other than Boeing have them, since noone else does it? Legitimate question. Would you poach a bunch of engineers from the airlines/military?

Isn't this the whole point of the "defund the government" approach?

Deliberately sabotage the regulatory authorities, then use the fact that they no longer have the expertise and staff as a justification to outsource the regulation function over to the companies that were supposed to be inspected.

And when it goes wrong, which it always does, make shocked pikachu face and claim that nothing can be done because we no longer have the capacity to regulate industry.

This would be less infuriating if this was the first time, but it keeps happening again and again and people keep falling for it. It is immensely profitable for the few though, that might be why it keeps happening.

The fix is easy, just requires time and budget: rebuild that expertise and refuse to certify anything until you have the necessary capabilities.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#30

Post by wnevets »

brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

> What other industry is allowed to inspect itself?

Movies. The ratings you see before a movie starts is assigned by the industry after inspecting the movie [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association

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