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Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#241

Post by sooheon »

user5994461 wrote: post #221
LoSboccacc wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There the thing: nobody wants to pay engineers on par with managers I used to think like that but I learned in time that the core issue is that engineers rarely know how to present their job in terms of monetary benefit during salary negotiations. i.e. as an automation engineer I led an initiative that saved a previous employer more than 60k€ yearly using automation and optimizing other validation workflows. as pri…

>>> by replacing a licensed component with an open source one, filling the feature gaps myself outside of work hours. Your achievement is to save money by doing all the work for free in your spare time? While I agree that engineers should negotiate better and keep track of their achievements, that is not one at all.

Sometimes an initial sacrifice for future mutually beneficial dividends is warranted, if it’s likely to be reciprocated. Keeping things purely transactional is better if you expect your counterpart to try to take advantage of you, of course, but I don’t think this is the case for all professional relationships, always.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#242

Post by perl4ever »

BurningFrog wrote: post #135
ficklepickle wrote: post #52

This whole plane sounds like any ugly hack. They slapped very different engines on an existing airframe. Then, when it inevitability exhibited undesirable behaviour, they tried to paper over the cracks. Then they hid this information from their customers, regulatory agencies and the pilots. It makes me wonder if there are other issues with the Max that the public doesn't know about yet. I hope a thorough review of Bo…

It's an ugly hack because the design tries to stay within what The Regulator considers the same airplane type. This in turn is because getting a new airplane type to market would cost some (I assume, facts are welcome!) unholy amount of money and time to get approved. If you consider that decision "greed" or "a rational response to perverse regulatory incentives" is I suppose a personality test as good as any :)

I think this sort of excuse is always superficially applicable and therefore meaningless. There is no malfeasance that can't be described as "a rational response to perverse regulatory incentives", but "rational" falsely implies a singular possibility chosen objectively. It's incorrect to defend a specific failure as being compelled, because one hasn't explained why this failure and not the near-infinite number of other possible ones.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#243

Post by LoSboccacc »

user5994461 wrote: post #221
LoSboccacc wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There the thing: nobody wants to pay engineers on par with managers I used to think like that but I learned in time that the core issue is that engineers rarely know how to present their job in terms of monetary benefit during salary negotiations. i.e. as an automation engineer I led an initiative that saved a previous employer more than 60k€ yearly using automation and optimizing other validation workflows. as pri…

>>> by replacing a licensed component with an open source one, filling the feature gaps myself outside of work hours. Your achievement is to save money by doing all the work for free in your spare time? While I agree that engineers should negotiate better and keep track of their achievements, that is not one at all.

> that is not one at all.

I'm significantly ahead of all my peers in job position and salary so I must have been doing something right.

I've a family now and such investment done prior are helping immensely.

all my peers know I'm dependable and all previous manager know I do get things done.

the large reference network is both a source of work opportunities and has been a safety net during times of need.

why would people choose the misery of strictly contractual relationship when you can build partnerships and friendship wherever you go with just very little effort.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#244

Post by sooheon »

01100011 wrote: post #176
danols wrote: post #85

The day someone very high up the corporate ladder truly gets held responsible for this type of greed & negligence and will be put a way for a long prison sentence would be a good day for society. But I am not holding my breath... But I hope that the CEO Dennis Muilenburg deep down understands he seriously fuxxed up real bad and every now and then is having a hard time falling a sleep in his $10M mansion knowing that…

Your comment makes it sound like you believe there was a single person with nefarious intentions or criminal negligence who chose to put lives at stake in exchange for profits. That is almost certainly not what happened. It is more likely a system of procedures and policies which failed. The company should take the hit, but unless an investigation reveals otherwise, I see no reason a single individual should take the…

I for one miss the concept of full responsibility and ownership. What happened to “the buck stops here”?

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#245

Post by perl4ever »

CydeWeys wrote: post #82
cameldrv wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't heard of it ever activating except in the incident/accident flights. It's required for certification, but you would either have to be mishandling the plane or get in some extreme weather for MCAS to activate. Think about it like the Antilock brakes on your car. Suppose the wheel position sensor fails. It's fine if the car puts up a warning light and says that you don't have antilock brakes anymore. You can…

ABS isn't the best example because it does prevent lots of accidents in its own right, including a >50% prevention rate of some types of accidents in rainy, snowy, or icy weather. The overall fatal accident reduction is 15% for cars and 27% for trucks and light trucks. Source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... And, anecdotally, I've had ABS kick in in some occurrences for which I was ver…

The first thing I read in your link seems to be the opposite of what you wrote:

"ABS has close to a zero net effect on fatal crash involvements."

Further down, there is a chart which seems to show that ABS is associated with a huge increase in fatal accidents in inclement weather, and a large increase in side impact accidents, both fatal and non-fatal.

Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing?

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#246

Post by perl4ever »

keiru wrote: post #128
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #105

How would you design your bureaucracy so that this kind of thing can't happen? I see this type of failure all the time in organizations big and small. Sometimes things are just too complex to have an auteur that can understand the entire system and when every department strives to optimize for its specific goal shit can really hit the fan.

Eventually, artificial intelligence. Maybe not in the near future, but as technology progresses and every manufacturer strives to optimize their designs with the latest features, it will become an unsourmountable task to oversee every aspect of it (efficiently). I'm not talking about actively designing, but rather for warning/flagging for potential error. In very complex enterprises like global transport or building…

Preventing problems like this seems to me to be what AI as we know it is least suited to - failures of human organizations generally seem to be failures to choose the right context due to no individual grasping it, and my impression of AI today is that it doesn't even engage with the problem. You can have a computer program that recognizes cats, or plays Go, but nobody even thinks about "how do we make this same program spontaneously respond to a spilt glass of milk, or a hostage situation, or a fire alarm...", let alone take into account everything in the world while doing so. It feels to me like people have tunnel vision that is getting worse, and the "intelligent" software is inheriting that.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#247

Post by dhimes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #237
dhimes wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a requirement to fly the plane advertised? In other words, if I book specifically a non-737 800 Max plane, and the airline switches, can I get my money back, or make them fly me on a different airline?

Why did you put the 800 in there? The 737-800 is a separate plane from the 737-MAX, and doesn't suffer from these problems (and is still operating; I just flew one cross-country last week). You might be referring to the 737-MAX 8 (not 800), which is the only variant of the 737-MAX delivered so far.

My mistake.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#248

Post by julik »

781 wrote: post #202
sirsuki wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the pilots were putting that much force on the yoke it is pretty apparent that the pilots really truly wanted the plan to do what they asked of it. I am curious what scenarios the designers of the plan drove then to not trust that the human in the seat really has no idea what they are doing. Was the ignoring the wishes of the pilot and attempt to prevent a crazed irresponsible and unlicensed idiot from doing somet…

If it only were that simple. Airbus in particular has a lot of systems which PREVENT the human from doing things. One plane actually crashed because the prevention system disabled itself and the pilots believed it was still there to protect them from bad actions on their part: > caused the autopilot to disconnect, after which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately caused the aircraft to enter an aerodynamic stal…

AF447 is fascinating for other reasons as well - on Airbus it is possible for two pilots to provide directly opposite control inputs because there is no mechanical linkage between the sidesticks, unlike on yokes in most other airplanes. It does produce a warning (dual input) but it is not tactile - you cannot feel what the other crew member is doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armavia_Flight_967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F5bRxTIn24

A pretty extreme UX issue.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#249

Post by supergirl »

how is it that boeing still has not admitted fault? i guess they bet to get out through a loophole in the investigation result; investigation that they are part of i assume? something like "it was 1% pilot error" is enough to make a pr campaign from.

Re: Boeing Built Deadly Assumptions into 737 Max, Blind to a Late Design Change

#250

Post by dhimes »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #218
dhimes wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

engineers rarely know how to present their job in terms of monetary benefit The point is, they shouldn't have to. The managers should be handling that fairly. Otherwise, it's an adversarial game where only one team knows how to play. Engineers should be experts in engineering. Holding them at a disadvantage because they are not good at the other feels wrong.

but even in such a scenario how a manager would know how to assign merit? they aren't expert in engineering either. someone in between has to connect the dots, but there is no such figure and the incentives for doing that communication work are all on the engineers' side addendum: I do however agree it sucks to have to compete with other fellows

I would think the manager would have a bigger picture view of the value added, but it probably varies with particular cases.
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