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Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

reuters.com

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Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#31

Post by MFLoon »

mattlondon wrote: post #28
jonplackett wrote: post #15

What’s the implication here? That it’s these pilot’s fault? Surely their job is just to report what they experience during a flight sim and it’s someone else who would have decided to hide that.

The implication is that people at Boeing knew there were problems with MCAS before the crashes happened. I am not saying these particular guys are at fault. The transcript ( https://tmsnrt.rs/2OZl4Ic ) shows them specifically talking about MCAS doing weird stuff in simulators and they they didn't know what was going on, or what the expected behaviour was. Interesting that it happened in a simulator where I presume th…

Simulators can "break" in the sense that support simulating various failure modes, including presumably sensor malfunctions. It's very possible that they stumbled on the exact conditions that led to the real world crashes, which would be even more damning.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#32

Post by mattlondon »

MFLoon wrote: post #31
mattlondon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication is that people at Boeing knew there were problems with MCAS before the crashes happened. I am not saying these particular guys are at fault. The transcript ( https://tmsnrt.rs/2OZl4Ic ) shows them specifically talking about MCAS doing weird stuff in simulators and they they didn't know what was going on, or what the expected behaviour was. Interesting that it happened in a simulator where I presume th…

Simulators can "break" in the sense that support simulating various failure modes, including presumably sensor malfunctions. It's very possible that they stumbled on the exact conditions that led to the real world crashes, which would be even more damning.

Yeah absolutely but if you are running a simulation/test would you deliberately inject some random sensor failure if you are doing your tests for something else?

It is not clear what they were testing - perhaps they were indeed testing the MCAS system with sensor failures, but if so I probably wouldn't have expected such a surprised resction from them. It seemed like it was totally unexpected and unexplained, which is not a reaction I would expect if they were testing this.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#33

Post by anon1m0us »

jonplackett wrote: post #14
Judson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if the link originally pointed to NYT, but the currently linked reuters report adds a bit more context to the messages. >Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).” The other employee responded that “it wasn’t a lie, no one told us that was the case” of an issue with MCAS. >Forkner responded soon after: “Granted I suck at flying, but even this was egregious.”

I don’t really understand the context of these messages. The one about MCAS running rampant is clear enough but what does he mean saying that he sucks at flying? What is egregious?

Think about it from a Dunning-Kruger perspective. The more you know about flying, the worse you think you are. The pilot is an expert and very experienced. He knows what he doesn't know.

He's acknowledging that even with all his experience, he could be wrong -- but clearly he wasn't.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#34

Post by jjoonathan »

mattlondon wrote: post #32
MFLoon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simulators can "break" in the sense that support simulating various failure modes, including presumably sensor malfunctions. It's very possible that they stumbled on the exact conditions that led to the real world crashes, which would be even more damning.

Yeah absolutely but if you are running a simulation/test would you deliberately inject some random sensor failure if you are doing your tests for something else? It is not clear what they were testing - perhaps they were indeed testing the MCAS system with sensor failures, but if so I probably wouldn't have expected such a surprised resction from them. It seemed like it was totally unexpected and unexplained, which i…

AoA sensors are far from specific to MCAS. They may have been injecting AoA faults to test some other system that depends on the AoA sensors.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#35

Post by thatswrong0 »

privateSFacct wrote: post #25
atonse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the…

There record is not dismal with the 737MAX. If you look at where fault lies part lies with boeing and part lies elsewhere in the safety chain. In contrast to many other areas - the evidence of ill intent is relatively weak here. Even without prison Boeing is facing major financial impacts as a result of this issue (as it should). It's looking like evidence from the airlines that proper maintenance was done may have b…

> the evidence of ill intent is relatively weak here

Most people are referring to negligence, not ill intent. "Let's make more money and rush this thing out! (Even though this could kill people)", not "Let's deliberately design a system to kill people".

Regardless, one sensor failing should not induce a plane to fly itself into the ground, despite the best efforts of the pilots to recover (and despite the fact they were not necessarily the best trained pilots). 2 / ~400 complete hull losses of brand new jets is completely unacceptable. That is dismal. Don't try to downplay it.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#36

Post by WalterBright »

Gpetrium wrote: post #16
atonse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the…

What op seems to imply is that airplane incidents rates actually have a stronger track record as opposed to the opioid epidemic, road fatality, etc. And that if society believes that this individual/group should go to prison based on this mistake and in hindsight, without account for all the other factors that were a part of the decision making process, then society should start reconsidering the way it treats opioid…

This is already the case with the FDA 1962 "safe effective" regulations. There is little downside to the FDA wanting to take no risks whatsoever in approving a drug, but a huge downside to the regulators if they approve a drug that turns out to have a fault in it.

The result is that developing new drugs got enormously more expensive, far fewer new drugs get developed, long delays in effective treatments getting approved, diseases that don't affect large numbers of people don't get cures developed, etc.

The net result was a negative for patients.

This was all discussed in "Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" by Sam Peltzman.

There have been a lot of deadly aviation crashes due to mistakes, false assumptions, oversights, incompetence, human failings, etc. But somehow we've wound up with incredibly safe airline travel. Millions of flights with no incident. Do we really want to start jailing people now? What improvements will we forsake if we give airframe makers powerful incentives to hide mistakes? or simply avoid making improvements to safety, because who wants to risk jail for making a mistake?

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#37

Post by mattlondon »

jjoonathan wrote: post #34
mattlondon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah absolutely but if you are running a simulation/test would you deliberately inject some random sensor failure if you are doing your tests for something else? It is not clear what they were testing - perhaps they were indeed testing the MCAS system with sensor failures, but if so I probably wouldn't have expected such a surprised resction from them. It seemed like it was totally unexpected and unexplained, which i…

AoA sensors are far from specific to MCAS. They may have been injecting AoA faults to test some other system that depends on the AoA sensors.

Sure - but either way it doesn't look good.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#38

Post by situationista »

privateSFacct wrote: post #27
Gpetrium wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What op seems to imply is that airplane incidents rates actually have a stronger track record as opposed to the opioid epidemic, road fatality, etc. And that if society believes that this individual/group should go to prison based on this mistake and in hindsight, without account for all the other factors that were a part of the decision making process, then society should start reconsidering the way it treats opioid…

I'm making the point that for for US flying (with US levels of maintenance / pilot training etc) boeing and even the 737MAX has a safety record that is incredible. Not only that, it beats almost all other regulated modes of transit and even other regulated hazards (OSHA controlled worksites etc). As always, it could be better - but it's actually amazingly good already - these planes are incredible safe in a challengi…

If it were safe to fly the Max in the US, and the problem were the pilots, it would be in the air now. It isn't, as the problem is clearly with the plane. It was likely just a matter of time before another Max fell out of the sky somewhere in the US, Europe or elsewhere.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#39

Post by WalterBright »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
WJW wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would support this sentiment usually, but in this case I don't really see a way to determine the chain of responsibility. Who do we force into prison in this scenario? The engineer(s) who made MCAS? Just the one that wrote the lines of code that monitor the airflow sensors? Do we also imprison the QA people that signed off on this? Why not also their managers? Who of the C-suite? Probably the CTO and maybe the CEO,…

It's super simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing#%22The_buck_stops... If the CEO's are held responsible for the deeds of the companies they lead you can bet that there would be an instant improvement of corporate accountability.

You'd also get no new airplane designs.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#40

Post by bronson »

privateSFacct wrote: post #25
atonse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the…

There record is not dismal with the 737MAX. If you look at where fault lies part lies with boeing and part lies elsewhere in the safety chain. In contrast to many other areas - the evidence of ill intent is relatively weak here. Even without prison Boeing is facing major financial impacts as a result of this issue (as it should). It's looking like evidence from the airlines that proper maintenance was done may have b…

> Their record is not dismal with the 737MAX.

By what metric?

By every metric I can find (passenger deaths per trip/flight leg/flight mile, hull losses per delivery/year, etc) the MAX is an outlier.

In fact, I can't find any other airframe in the last 50 years that even comes close (including the DC-9 and TU-154). What other airplane has killed 300+ passengers in its first 4 years of operation?

So, what metric have you selected to show that the MAX isn't dismal?

(and please, no lie-with-statistics stuff like hiding the MAX in 737NG data, or claiming that crashes by foreign pilots or on foreign soil don't count)

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