Boeing docs show staffers discussing ways to manipulate regulators on 737 Max

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/internal-boeing-documents-show-employees-discussing-efforts-to-mani/2020/01/09/83a0c6ec-334f-11ea-91fd-82d4e04a3fac_story.html

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

146 44 7 years ago

washingtonpost.com

bambax• 7 years ago

The 737 Max fiasco is a tragedy and these emails are damning.

That said, it's likely one could find similar remarks in other high pressure / high stakes situations; what we would need to see to know, are other email exchanges regarding other plane certification processes.

giarc2• 7 years ago

I think in any large organization, you are going to find people that think like this/talk like this. These emails are bad and the culture definitely needs to change, but who hasn't heard someone refer to their manager as a clown? No matter how good or bad your boss is, sometimes people are just going to complain.

"this airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys."

Velert• 7 years ago

I'm sure most people at one point or another have been critical of management, were anyone to dig through my IM history they'd certainly find something.

what's more damming are the efforts made to cover up to safety regulators

stonedge• 7 years ago

Agreed. In any large org, you’ll have thoughts and opinions all over the place and I’m sure you could find much more damaging stuff than these comments.

Folks just need to learn not to write this stuff down.

jcriddle4• 7 years ago

Isn't this the point of every third or forth Dilbert cartoon? This seems pretty universal. Humans are very flawed. There are those who accept that reality and those who like to believe in some fairy tale that for really "important" things that somehow we can put some management and twenty point processes in place, some motivational posters, a big team building group hug and then we will walk on water(NOT).

JohnFen4• 7 years ago

who hasn't heard someone refer to their manager as a clown?

I have never personally heard anyone do this in writing, even when their manager was a clown. But I'm sure that I'm the exception, not the rule.

dilap• 7 years ago

What I found most concerning was the reference to Singapore being tough, while "the FAA were neither thorough nor demanding and failed to write up many issues".

Definitely reinforces the impression the FAA has gotten way too cozy with industry.

bart_spoon• 7 years ago

Well in one exchange, one person asked another if they would be willing to fly their family on a MAX plane, to which they responded no. And perhaps more importantly than the content of these messages is their volume. There's 100 pages of this stuff. This isn't an isolated case of disgruntled employees like you'd find at most companies. This is an entire project in which just about everyone working on it had something bad to say about it, and was acknowledged to be dangerous, and it still got rammed through.

zcw100• 7 years ago

These emails are good. They’re only Bad for Boeing. 346 people are dead.

The result of this, unfortunately, is probably going to be management at Boeing and elsewhere to step up corporate email monitoring and in a visible way so that employees will know they are being monitored and punished for documenting it.

Employees will have to resort to non corporate communications, used off hours, with a kill cord.

NohatCoder• 7 years ago

The important barrier to such thinking is company culture, as long as only a few people think this way others will correct their mistakes.

JohnJamesRambo• 7 years ago

But how many of those situations have “plane falls out of sky and kills hundreds” as one of the end scenarios?

ManWith2Plans• 7 years ago

One wonders what has led society to a place where this is so sadly unsurprising. Why should employees ever feel the need to deliver results quickly, even at the expense of safety? How have we managed to flood engineering with incompetent people to the extent that they manage to infiltrate such critical systems without thinking twice.

We've clearly screwed up somewhere in setting incentives for these companies...

sebastien_b7• 7 years ago

I think one of the root problems is that there are too many "public" companies, that serve not the public, but their shareholders instead, with the additional problem being that public companies are required to put their shareholders first; thus "public company" is a complete oxymoron.

As we've seen so many times, this results in the public interest being put aside, with negative consequences to the public in order to benefit the shareholders.

jacobush• 7 years ago

“Looks like my jedi mind trick worked again!” the pilot wrote. “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”

Pretty bold culture over there. (When talking about putting pressure on regulators to not demand simulator training for the MAX.)

dboreham• 7 years ago

And this is what they said in written communications, where there's a common understanding that the content may later be widely shared, published on CNN etc.

mhandley• 7 years ago

This article has the actual email and chat transcripts (scroll down to the bottom): https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21059420/boeing-employees-...

Most of the discussion is about the 737 Max simulator, not the aircraft itself. Page 19 seems particularly damning.

sytse• 7 years ago

Except from page 19 done with OCR:

Sent: 20 February 2017 12:22 To: r 13)boeinn com> Subject: REr—r. 777 ECL COC update request Fly home today — having the kitchen replaced on Thursday through to Friday next week L Amazing what a brown envelope can achieve — it isn't anywhere near as good as it would appear to be reading the report. The FAA were neither thorough nor demanding and failed to write up marry issues. And the lies, the damned lies — I was removed from the simulator for three days in the week leading up to the evaluation on the instructions of a Senior Manager so that certainly individuals could 'tune' with the pilot. The tiring then fouled up multiple QTG tests and was clearly wrong and the pilot was forced to sign a SoC that was clearly based on a lie. Another Senior Manager was also screamed at in a temper tantrum by said individual and also barred from the simulator. The Go/No Go decision comes along and then aforementioned Senior Manager and Senor Engineer then state to a cast of 30 —"we have to trust the decision of ti ]on Site". Needless to say, I tore straight into riland E.1117171about the lies and the unethicaticleceiffd nature of this comment as it meant I was set up to take the blame should it have gone wrong. It is a joke and nothing more — whilst 9 PMs were on Site last week during the evaluation, it was for a jolly/free meal. One PM even said that given that we are tiler budget, we should hire a yacht a sail around Miami harbour to celebrate and even asked submit the request...

DoofusOfDeath• 7 years ago

I guess this is a reminder of how useful "CYA" emails can be.

ricudis• 7 years ago

Anybody noticed that they failed to redact some of the names on the chat transcript?

JohnFen4• 7 years ago

This reinforces that my decision to avoid flying on the Max until it has been in service for at least a few years is the right one.

busterarm2• 7 years ago

Murder charges. Jail time.

This must happen.

coralreef3• 7 years ago

It would be manslaughter via negligence, or something similar to it

busterarm2• 7 years ago

Interfering with regulators when you know the plane isn't safe to fly sounds pretty much like "premeditated" to me.

privateSFacct• 7 years ago

Absolutely not - do you realize how safe flying in the US is? And you want to charge the people (flawed - yes) as murders? Absolutely revolting!

GuB-422• 7 years ago

No one wanted people to die, it is not murder, at worst it is involuntary manslaughter. And maybe justice will come down to that conclusion and some people will end up in jail.

But is it the solution? Is it what should be done?

Because if people are going to jail, then who? There are probably hundreds of people who have some responsibility. There are the higher ups who encourage such behavior, those who are a bit too liberal with the rubber stamp, the liars, the ones who trust the liars even if it is their job not to, the ones who failed to report, the one who didn't listen for the reports, the engineers who designed the solution, and of course, the pilots, the flight instructors,... There are enough people for an entire prison city here.

This is not a case we can solve by pointing fingers. There is a systemic problem that needs to be solved. And just throwing a few people in prison will just result in Boeing hiring new scapegoats.

sebastien_b7• 7 years ago

No one wanted people to die, it is not murder, at worst it is involuntary manslaughter

Try again - more like criminal negligence at a minimum.

But is it the solution? Is it what should be done?

Yes - there needs to be some serious consequences, not the usual typical 'Company shuts down, execs get huge severance while whistleblowers and investors get shafted' type thing.

Also, some heads at the FAA need to roll. Utter failure of an agency that's supposed to protect the public.

And I also hope the victims' families also sue for pain and suffering, because they're victims of this too.

sebastien_b7• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, this wouldn't stick, only because they didn't know who would end up getting killed, or when, beforehand.

lefty2• 7 years ago

I wonder if Boeing could have edited the documents before passing them on the authorities, or even "losing" some emails, if there was something really incriminating.

Boeing docs show staffers discussing ways to manipulate regulators on 737 Max

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