Does anyone know where we can read the actual documents? This article is missing a lot of information.
The Washington Post has them https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/boeing-documents-reve...
Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
71–80 of 247 posts
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#72'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on…
I came back to the comments to reference this exact quote! If the actions are inconsistent with Boeing values, then Boeing has the wrong values.
Same. Sure firing competent employees is the right and only necessary move here. /s
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#73Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?
Here on hn, on the other hand, there are plenty of people that say that they don’t see any problem in flying on the max once it is again in service. From my point of view I’ll happily let them be the guinea pigs while I’ll avoid at all costs to fly on that death machine.
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#74Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?
Two things: 1. You would be surprised at how normal talk like that is in huge corporations due to internal politics. People bad-mouth other projects that are getting limelight, taking away resources, etc. A more benign example is how often Google employees rag on the GCP engineers as being inferior, which has more to do with the money flowing into GCP than merit. 2. People are irrational about safety, despite data sh…
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Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it work…
There’s a difference between knowing something that would improve a system and knowing that there are specific flaws with a significant degree of lethality. It should be acceptable to miss someone telling you the first (if perhaps a missed opportunity), but it’s negligent to miss the second. It sounds to me that these people were taken aback and appalled by the cavalier attitude towards safety. If you have a decent n…
To me, your attitude is that problems shouldn't exist because we should solve them, as if there's a magical process that guarantees perfection. But what happens when we miss something? What happens when an employee has a thought about an engineering technique that maybe didn't quite make sense, but speaking out would disrupt an entire chain of command within the culture we invest into day-in day-out, and they get distracted by one of the million ways to do it these days and don't end up dealing with their thought? What if we miss this moment and some things get by that shouldn't. Is this not human to some degree?
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#76Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?
Here on hn, on the other hand, there are plenty of people that say that they don’t see any problem in flying on the max once it is again in service. From my point of view I’ll happily let them be the guinea pigs while I’ll avoid at all costs to fly on that death machine.
To be fair, flying in MAX was/would still be orders of magnitude safer than pretty much any other transportation method outside flying.
(No, I don't think I still want to fly that, either)
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#77Any internal correspondence can become public information in a disclosure proces. ~ first rule of corporate communications
Yup. Talk as much crap as you want in person, but what goes in email and web messages and pull-requests and code comments must be immaculate.
Even in person, you shouldn't talk crap all the time. It creates a toxic culture.
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? I’ve ragged on my employers in DMs, and will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs. Providing my opinions in such channels is part of what I’m paid to do. If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, manages to majorly mess something up, and my comments come back to haunt them, why is that my problem?
> why is that my problem? This kind of attitude is the problem. You’re supposed to be working together toward the same goal. As a team. A team of “not my problem” people who are working only towards their own individual goals (or worse, CYA) is the most toxic team that can exist.
I think you missed the point, "will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs" means he straight up communicates any issue without sugar-coating. Which is what you want from a conscious employee. If despite that someone higher up in the decision chain ignores the issue (in the case of safety risks, that is criminal negligence), to continue to fight this battle is pointless and would only mean risking one's career for nothing.
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#79I think the only thing that can actually fix Boeing is bankruptcy, so I hope that people refuse to fly on the Max even after recertification and it ends up being too big of a financial blow to recover from.
I agree. I'll be boycotting the Max just on principle, regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. I'm hoping (and kind of expecting) that people will build simple apps or websites to check whether an advertised flight is on a 737 Max. It should be quite easy for people to avoid/boycott this plane.
> regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified.
To be fair, after this the Max is likely to be one of the most intensively studied and prepped planes in existence for pilots who might have to fly one. Pilots don't want to die either.
Re: Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters
#80I think the only thing that can actually fix Boeing is bankruptcy, so I hope that people refuse to fly on the Max even after recertification and it ends up being too big of a financial blow to recover from.
I agree. I'll be boycotting the Max just on principle, regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. I'm hoping (and kind of expecting) that people will build simple apps or websites to check whether an advertised flight is on a 737 Max. It should be quite easy for people to avoid/boycott this plane.
Not on Ryanair. The CEO explicitly said that their plane allocation is defined 24 hours before the flight and if the passengers discover that the plane is a max they are welcome to not fly but they won’t get any refund.Ah, and they had the balls to rename their max planes to 737-8800 or something similar trying to deceive everyone.
Result: it’s almost 1 year that I don’t fly with Ryanair even if before this I used it several times per year.