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Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

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Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#41

Post by vkou »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #29
ilikehurdles wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing opened its South Carolina plant to avoid a unionized workforce, and that plant has been responsible for producing these horrific excuses they call airplanes. They had the benefit of a doubt before, but now it's clear that Boeing's leadership, like that of other public companies, values cheap labor over safety.

I'm not sure how unions have any relations to this. They exist as a mediator between management and workers for pay and rights; customer satisfaction or safety is completely outside their domain

Another poster cited a small anecdote about a Boeing whistleblower:

> In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.

In a unionized workforce, people are far more confident about pushing back on this sort of criminal bullshit, when their manager asks it of them. (Because getting rid of someone in a union shop requires a paper trail. And people making illegal demands hate, hate, hate paper trails.)

In a non-unionized workforce, the only recourse we, as the public have is to jail the line workers who scrubbed the paint, while their managers will quietly deny any wrongdoing (Of course we didn't suggest this sort of thing, of course we had no idea this was happening, of course we didn't pressure anyone into doing something so blatantly unethical, under express or implied threat of termination...)

We just told people that we need them to ship 100 parts, and waggled our eyelashes suggestively at a box labeled '100 defective parts'.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#42

Post by lotsofpulp »

everdev wrote: post #28
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say that? All I said is that it wasn't a clear political win because it could easily be framed as a jobs issue.

> she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers. That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.

dsfyu404ed never commented or implied on what should happen. He simply stated what might happen, and why it might happen.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#43

Post by RankingMember »

everdev wrote: post #28
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say that? All I said is that it wasn't a clear political win because it could easily be framed as a jobs issue.

> she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers. That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.

I don't think he's saying that, but he is being a pessimist (though with the way our political system is working, maybe more a realist than I want to accept).

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#44

Post by RankingMember »

mhandley wrote: post #20

And it's recently emerged that the AoA sensor misread itself may have been Boeing's fault, and due to foreign object damage to wiring: https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-rep... Boeing also has foreign object damage problems on the 787 and on the KC46 tankers. Looks like this story still has a long way to run. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... https://www.seattletime…

Wow, I'm surprised that's not more well-known (that the USAF halted all deliveries of the KC-46 after finding loose material and debris in delivered planes). Amazingly bad.

I wonder what the odds are that the Dreamliner gets grounded (again) soon to have them all gone over with a fine-tooth comb.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#46

Post by JudgeWapner »

dontbenebby wrote: post #23
mieseratte wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you don't think it's going to be a US congresscritter. "Why do you hate American jobs!"

You can turn that logic around real quick since Boeing also makes planes and other equipment for the US military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu... You don't hate the troops after all, do you?

yep, "think of the troops" is just as emotive (and patronizing) as "think of the children". Unbelievable that people repeatedly fall for it.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#47

Post by benttoothpaste »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #13
magtux wrote: post #6

I always had great respect for aerospace and thought they'd put safety above all else but seeing all this, Boeing seems like a fucking travesty.

Boeing opened its South Carolina plant to avoid a unionized workforce, and that plant has been responsible for producing these horrific excuses they call airplanes. They had the benefit of a doubt before, but now it's clear that Boeing's leadership, like that of other public companies, values cheap labor over safety.

In South Carolina Boeing produces 787 Dreamliners. The 737 Max is produced in Washington.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#48

Post by everdev »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #42
everdev wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers. That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.

dsfyu404ed never commented or implied on what should happen. He simply stated what might happen, and why it might happen.

Right... Let's not be too hard on the tobacco companies because you'll lose the vote of every blue collar farmer that's wants a stable job cultivating tobacco.

It's a pretty routine argument that says if you threaten my job for any reason I'll vote you out.

Doesn't matter if my job is creating things that crash, giving people cancer, etc.

That argument doesn't fly for a lot of us.

There will still be mechanical and aerospace jobs, just at companies that aren't going to play fast and loose with regulations.

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#49

Post by robocat »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #36
ilikehurdles wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions give employees the knowledge and leverage to push back against unrealistic demands, deadlines, and cost-cutting measures without retaliation. These kinds of rushed solutions causing more problems down the line are caused by a culture that rewards employees who put up with managers breathing down their neck.

Irrelevant in this case, though. While concerns have indeed been raised about SC production quality, this particular story involves an engineering failure, not a production issue. Boeing engineers are unionized through SPEEA. They can bring the company to its knees at contract negotiation time, and they have done so in the past.

I disagree, it is also a production issue because:

"One whistleblower reported to the FAA that they had seen damage to the electrical wiring connected to the plane’s angle of attack sensor from a foreign object, which feeds data to the MCAS system so it can determine whether it needs to engage to prevent the plane from stalling. This wouldn’t be the first time Boeing’s manufacturing process reportedly had problems guarding plane components against foreign object debris produced by the fabrication process."

Re: Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

#50

Post by CamperBob2 »

robocat wrote: post #49
CamperBob2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant in this case, though. While concerns have indeed been raised about SC production quality, this particular story involves an engineering failure, not a production issue. Boeing engineers are unionized through SPEEA. They can bring the company to its knees at contract negotiation time, and they have done so in the past.

I disagree, it is also a production issue because: "One whistleblower reported to the FAA that they had seen damage to the electrical wiring connected to the plane’s angle of attack sensor from a foreign object, which feeds data to the MCAS system so it can determine whether it needs to engage to prevent the plane from stalling. This wouldn’t be the first time Boeing’s manufacturing process reportedly had problems gu…

Stuff happens. The fact that damage to a single AOA sensor -- whether in the factory or in the field -- could cause this sort of event is strictly an engineering issue.
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