US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

https://on.ft.com/4aV0CQ7

by ryanisnan • 3 years ago

695 349 3 years ago

on.ft.com

rramadass• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/Dx8gP

voakbasda• 3 years ago

Dear regulators,

Do it.

Do it now.

Sincerely,

Everyone

jillesvangurp• 3 years ago

Easier said then done. Inspecting planes is job that requires a lot of skill and knowledge. Most of those people aren't cheap and they tend to work for airplane companies that need their skills and can pay their salaries. Which in the US means Boeing basically employs all the best people for this.

IMHO, the system actually works just fine. Accidents are extremely rare and companies tend to learn from them.

A better fix would maybe be to just make it really expensive for Boeing to cut corners here and put mechanisms in place to verify that they aren't. And you could argue that is the case already. Their reputation suffered and it probably shows in their order books. So, I'm guessing they are very eager and well incentivized to move on from that.

And looking at the Airbus and Boeing stock price suggests that Boeing stock has never recovered from that. Both stocks went down a lot at the beginning of Covid. But the Airbus stock has basically recovered from that and Boeing hasn't.

Even the mere threat of regulators getting more strict is probably making investors really nervous. That could end up being more effective than any actual inspections.

protastus• 3 years ago

Inspecting planes does require a lot of skill and knowledge. But one doesn't need deep expertise to detect loose bolts.

My experience is that when quality breaks down, the effects are visible at multiple scales and multiple places. Who knows what else is non-compliant in the 737 MAX assembly line (surely this is why the FAA announced an audit).

Loose bolts happen because multiple layers of protection were bypassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Dalewyn2• 3 years ago

For all the criticism the American aerospace industry gets, Boeing is the only one clearly suffering the problems they have. If stricter regulations mean Boeing can't do business, tough luck.

Boeing's entire business is to make good aircraft, and they are grossly failing to do so; their problems extend far beyond just the 737 MAX. A business that can't sell good products shouldn't be in business one way or another.

mathverse• 3 years ago

Poach people from Airbus. Just pay them well and bring them over.

gmerc• 3 years ago

What’s there to consider even - political connections?

thatguy0900• 3 years ago

Does the faa have enough qualified staff and budget to review boeings planes? Does anyone other than Boeing have them, since noone else does it? Legitimate question. Would you poach a bunch of engineers from the airlines/military?

bombcar3• 3 years ago

You build it up over time by hiring direct from colleges (or even trade schools).

It has to be a complete plan, not just a slap-dash "we can hire some people and the problem is solved".

To do it best you do NOT hire from the industry, and if necessary you hire from unrelated industries (perhaps, for example, oil rig/pipeline inspectors).

burnerthrow0082• 3 years ago

As a practical matter, the FAA might designate someone outside of Boeing to do the inspections (like maybe people from Lockheed or Grumman, who are not directly competing in the commercial airliner space).

When you take a checkride at the end of training to earn your pilot certificate, it's not an FAA employee riding with you... it's a "DPE" or Designated Pilot Examiner, who is a private individual designated by the FAA to conduct check rides (and who often charges you a fee to administer the test).

Occasionally an FAA employee will ride along with the student pilot and DPE to evaluate how the DPE is evaluating prospective pilots.

jgeada• 3 years ago

Isn't this the whole point of the "defund the government" approach?

Deliberately sabotage the regulatory authorities, then use the fact that they no longer have the expertise and staff as a justification to outsource the regulation function over to the companies that were supposed to be inspected.

And when it goes wrong, which it always does, make shocked pikachu face and claim that nothing can be done because we no longer have the capacity to regulate industry.

This would be less infuriating if this was the first time, but it keeps happening again and again and people keep falling for it. It is immensely profitable for the few though, that might be why it keeps happening.

The fix is easy, just requires time and budget: rebuild that expertise and refuse to certify anything until you have the necessary capabilities.

tuetuopay• 3 years ago

hire airbus to inspect boeing, and hire boeing to inspect airbus?

nottorp2• 3 years ago

If you read the analysis published after the MCAS disaster, self certification is something recent so the FAA at least used to have people.

iamtheworstdev• 3 years ago

The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. The people with the expertise all work for aircraft manufacturers. And odds are the FAA will never pay anyone enough to leave the manufacturers to do the job.

ajcp• 3 years ago

There are other ways to solution for the same outcome, or get closer to it.

Pass regulation that requires audit and certification by a rated and licensed authority that isn't necessarily the government itself. As a publicly traded company Boeing already has to do this with its books; why not with its product too?

I'm sure that E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, or PwC would love a crack at a new market and they've certainly got the money to hire away from manufacturers.

wolverine8765• 3 years ago

The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise.

Do you know a basis for that? My understanding, though limited, is that they have incredible expertise - and we can see their outstanding results. Also, IME, this claim is used by many industries to assert that they shouldn't be subject to regulation, and (IME) it's always false.

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

Well, there are over 400K parts in a 737 and they're building more than one a day. How many of those need more inspection? How many inspectors do you want to apply to this problem? How much growth of the FAA? How many/long to do a ground up review of every Boeing inspection process? How much more do you want to pay for every flight? What will be the impact on Boeing pricing vs Airbus worldwide?

HN is pretty strange these days. One day gov't is the problem, the next it is the only solution. We need "streamlining" of regulation for more nukes, but more regulation of Boeing because a door blew off over 100's of millions of flights. We need to get rid of the FAA and ATC and automate everything with software controls to prevent runway incursions. But we need to ban autonomous cars.

game_the0ry4• 3 years ago

Finally, after a couple of plane crashes, fantastic investigative journalism, and a door blowing off mid flight (thankfully that was caught on video and shared).

Too little, too late.

We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either.

SoftTalker• 3 years ago

Do you think Boeing would have (or could have) swept that under the rug if there was no video of the incident?

I don't think it makes sense for any manufacturer to be solely responsible for their own safety inspections. Too much incentive to cheat. Must be verified or at least randomly spot-checked independently.

game_the0ry4• 3 years ago

Do you think Boeing would have (or could have) swept that under the rug if there was no video of the incident?

Yes. It is way more powerful to actually see what happen than to just hear a report about it. I think it was more powerful than even a plane crash that is not caught on film, even though many people would die.

Do not underestimate the power of photo and video evidence.

wolverine8765• 3 years ago

We should regulate the regulators, bc I don't trust them either.

We should have oversight, and we do, but it's hard to pick a worse example of bad regulation (or a better example of good regulation) than the FAA. Air travel safety is extraordinary.

mc32• 3 years ago

Better late than not at all. I welcome a stringed regime of regulation for aircraft manufacturers and operators.

mardifoufs2• 3 years ago

The plane crashes had nothing to do with inspection. You could've inspected a 737max down to every single bolt back in 2017 and not have prevented the crashes that happened after that.

throwup2382• 3 years ago

It's clearly a systemic problem regardless.

dogman144• 3 years ago

737 crash was software and training quality. I think if you included those i. a mission critical systems inspection, under which software on planes is about as important as the bolts and metal, then you’d find preventions.

Or, just talk on ex-BA SWE and learn about it from them.

ActionHank• 3 years ago

Calm down, they are just considering it.

brink• 3 years ago

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

game_the0ry4• 3 years ago

Finance.

As proven by the 2008-2010 Great Financial Crisis, self regulation does not work well.

shermantanktop2• 3 years ago

...in all cases. You've got a great counterexample, but it doesn't invalidate the successful use of self-regulation in other areas.

moomin• 3 years ago

Famously, in the UK, Railtrack outsourced basically its whole operation. Including inspections, often to the same firms doing the work. This culminated in the Potters Bar crash. I worked with someone who survived it. He was, by his own estimation "not quite right" afterwards.

People don't often make the connection, but at that point the government of the day started pressuring Railtrack to fix the rails. Railtrack's countergambit was to demand money from the government, saying they couldn't afford to do it. This did not have the effect they had hoped for and ended up with Tony Blair, a man who had made a name for himself by changing the Labour party constitution so they no longer were about nationalising industries, having to nationalise a section of the railway industry. And to this date, no-one, even a conservative government in power for the last 14 years, has suggested privatising it again.

pi-e-sigma5• 3 years ago

Alternative explanation is that there is no money to be made by privatization, not because anybody cares if there would be another accident and a lot of people would die

ponty_rick• 3 years ago

TV channels have self-regulation as well - admittedly it doesn't directly kill people. There's also police departments, I suppose.

bombcar3• 3 years ago

The vast majority of industries are practically self-inspected, even when inspectors exist.

For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record.

Same with building inspections, they're no where near detailed and long enough to catch everything, it's mainly a spot check to verify that it's not horribly incorrect.

hn8305823• 3 years ago

For example, take construction engineering; the government doesn't fully inspect every single submitted drawing, they may spot check here and there and make sure the paperwork is filled out, but the final duty rests with the engineer of record.

This doesn't always end well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1031_Canal#Partial_collapse_du...

bryanlarsen3• 3 years ago

A lot of industries self-inspect with regulatory oversight. For example, the SpaceX Starship mishap investigation that required 63 corrective actions from SpaceX before they were allowed to fly Starship again was done by SpaceX with FAA oversight. It seems that the oversight was effective; I highly doubt that SpaceX would have imposed 63 corrective actions on itself without effective oversight.

It's hard to see how it could be any different. SpaceX engineers are the only ones with enough knowledge of Starship to do an effective investigation.

burnerthrow0082• 3 years ago

I highly doubt that SpaceX would have imposed 63 corrective actions on itself without effective oversight.

Eh, I don't know if I agree with that. Most of the actions were very straightforward "stuff we need to fix to make the rocket do what we want it to do and not do what we don't want it to do".

Like, one of the actions was "make the launch pad not explode when the engines turn on". That was the root cause of the engine failures that led to the flight termination. Was SpaceX really not going to do that anyway?

Besides formalizing the process and writing down a list of 63 bullet points and using the legalese of "corrective actions" for them, I think the result would have been basically the same without the FAA looking over their shoulder.

But the main reason for my belief is that the Falcon 9 launch success streak is currently better than any other rocket in history (by a large margin), at 241 launches and counting (and 180 launches since the last landing failure). To put this in context, other launchers with a similar or greater number of launches go 30-50 launches between failures. Unless SpaceX is just incredibly unbelievably lucky, they seem to understand how to do RCA to build reliable rockets.

dmurray• 3 years ago

Stockbroking, cinema, accountancy, law, life insurance, financial planning, nuclear power, real estate, medicine, advertising, media...[0][1]

Self-regulation (especially at the industry level rather than delegating to individual companies) doesn't seem completely broken. Actually it can work quite well. You keep some oversight, and reserve the right for the state regulator to step in if the SRO goes bad. The people who run the SRO have an interest in perpetuating their organization, so they if anything have an incentive to be stricter than the government would. If things do go wrong, the government demands direct oversight. That's what's happening here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-regulatory_organization

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sro.asp

rkangel• 3 years ago

An industry regulating itself is different from an organisation regulating itself.

Self regulation of the industry is common as you say. It tends to involve one central body enforcing the standards on the members, and acting as a central point for agreement of the standards.

This is not the case with the Aviation regulation. The FAA is the regulator, and has delegated the testing to the people it is meant to be regulating.

keenmaster2• 3 years ago

Self-regulatory bodies are usually centralized and separate from any individual corporation. They also tend to answer directly to a government agency and cannot be disciplined by a corporation. While there can still be issues such as a strong revolving door and potential indirect pressure to be nice to the regulated entities, it’s not as terrible as what Boeing and other airplane manufacturers get to do (inspect themselves in lieu of regulatory inspections). That’s strange, because lives are literally on the line, more so than some other industries with more independent examinations.

pleasantpeasant2• 3 years ago

SRO sounds like a middle-man in this process. And like all middle-man industries, they suck out money from both sides that they deal with.

We can easily publicly fund over-sight committees to oversee these industries instead of relying on SROs who take tax-payer money and are in the perfect financial and power position to do some really corrupt and immoral things.

Look at the National Association of Realtors, another SRO— On October 31, 2023, a federal civil jury found that the NAR had conspired to inflate commissions paid to home-buyers' real estate agents, and determined that NAR and its codefendants owed damages of almost US$1,800,000,000.

Zillow and NAR have anti-trust lawsuits coming their way too. Relying on SROs is just asking for corruption, imo.

SilasX• 3 years ago

This. It's not a problem as long as the self-regulator is kept in line with periodic checks from a higher regulator.

It's similar to how income taxes work. You self-report all the figures, and then they are sampled and spot-checked and occasionally audited. The possibility of being caught by an audit, then prods people to generally submit truthful reports, because of the risk of penalties.

And then, if that incentive ceases to work, the self-report/self-regulate status gets revoked.

JohnFen4• 3 years ago

Self-regulation (especially at the industry level rather than delegating to individual companies) doesn't seem completely broken.

Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that I don't have much faith when companies "regulate" themselves. There's just too much conflict of interest there. A third party doing it is, on its face, more trustworthy.

asdff2• 3 years ago

Those 10 sorts of industries you cited aren't exactly models of self regulation. Well, they are, in the sense of how to abuse regulatory capture to maximize returns, but not in the sort of sense most people think of regulation which is limiting harm to consumers.

logifail• 3 years ago

The people who run the SRO have an interest in perpetuating their organization, so they if anything have an incentive to be stricter than the government would

Except if the "people who run the SRO" are in fact employees of the very company they're supposed to be regulating... ?

Then they surely have an even greater incentive to keep quiet in order to keep their jobs?

poulsbohemian• 3 years ago

real estate

What's funny about this is that if you were to ask a group of brokers (IE: the ones with authority over the business - terminology is inconsistent between states...), they would probably tell you that the state has a great deal of oversight, but I'd agree with you - by and large no one is actually watching them. I was with a group of fellow brokers not long ago and it came as a clear surprise to them that the state would no longer be actually auditing them. The state wouldn't make it official policy, but it was a wink and a smile that they wouldn't. There were gasps around the room and it was really rather an insightful moment. While I am new in this role, it was obvious to me the state wasn't actually auditing anything - and frankly, why should they unless they've had a consumer complaint? But the fact that very experienced brokers were surprised by this was interesting.

newsclues• 3 years ago

Congress

class3shock• 3 years ago

This is pretty common in aerospace, defense and, I imagine, alot of other government facing industries. For something like this the inspection procedure is likely approved by the government and verification it's being performed properly is done with lots of submitted and retained paperwork. So maybe less judge and jury and more private vs public attorney filing the same motion. Yes, they could have biases but they both are performing the same task, based on the same laws.

Of course that doesn't always stop mistakes/negligence (see this incident) or bad actors (see below): https://news.usni.org/2020/06/19/navy-has-mitigated-risk-of-...

I will also add that just because something is inspected by the government does not insure quality. Usually failures in inspection are due to inexperienced and/or overworked inspectors, higher ups pushing to "get things through" or to reduce costs, or other banal reasons just as possible to occur whether it's Uncle Sam or Boeing writing the inspectors checks.

wnevets• 3 years ago

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself?

Movies. The ratings you see before a movie starts is assigned by the industry after inspecting the movie [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association

kmeisthax• 3 years ago

Not a great example. The 1st Amendment prohibits literally anything more strict.

josh_carterPDX• 3 years ago

The FAA is bad, but I would say the FDA is worse.

Any industry in which you have companies actually writing the text of the regulations used to oversee them is a recipe for disaster.

Sadly it usually takes a tragedy to highlight these egregious systems that exist in our country. We also need to get lobbyists out of Washington so that the real impactful work can begin to separate the government agencies from the companies they're meant to regulate.

randomdata2• 3 years ago

We also need to get lobbyists out of Washington

You can't have (representative) democracy without lobbying. It is not that you need to get the lobbyists out, you need to convince more lobbyists in. It is likely that the average Joe has not talked to their representatives even just once, let alone on the ongoing basis necessary to fulfill the demands of democracy.

istjohn• 3 years ago

We need to get money out of politics.

HeyLaughingBoy• 3 years ago

How so? The systems I develop are subject to IEC-62304 (https://www.iso.org/standard/38421.html). What about that is written by companies? Which companies?

throwup2382• 3 years ago

Clinical diagnostics, for example. Any time you take a blood test and send it off somewhere (Quest, LabCorp, etc.) to get assayed, chances are it goes to a self-regulated and self-inspected lab. These labs hire FDA certified "lab managers" as consultants or employees who are then responsible for all QA/QC procedures and certifying that the lab is capable of doing what they claim. They can be held criminally liable and have quite a bit of authority (a bit like professional engineers) but it's still a cozy employer-employee relationship.

The FDA steps in when something goes really bad but I've never seen them do official spot checks without cause.

alasdair_• 3 years ago

Would the Theranos debacle have progressed as far as it did if the FDA inspected at the beginning?

empath-nirvana• 3 years ago

Well, the theory is that what is being regulated by federal government is the inspection process of the company, rather than the inspections themselves.

Mostly the government doesn't want to get involved in checking if bolts are tightened, they want to make sure that the company has a process to check that the bolts are tightened and is following it. It would be extraordinarily expensive and inefficient for government inspectors to do all this work themselves.

AceyMan• 3 years ago

The FAA / Aircraft Manufacturer relationship has been oft criticized in the past several decades as being a canonical example of 'regulatory capture.'¹ This incident is just more grist for the mill.

¹–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture?wprov=sfla1

thsksbd• 3 years ago

Pharmaceutical.

halJordan• 3 years ago

You got a laundry list of responses, the take away is that even with modern technology and abilities it is completely impractical to do the sort of inspecting that people seem to think is common place. Even for just one industry, but people seem to think every industry has regulators inspecting every factory. There just aren't enough people or money and if you did somehow do that the bureaucracy would collapse down onto itself in the same way imperial China repeatedly imploded.

Edit: the promise of the blockchain and self executing contracts was to overcome this bureaucracy problem.

turquoisevar2• 3 years ago

This seems to excuse poor enforcement of regulations (or worse, lack of the government regulating to begin with) with the premise that it’s impossible to do right.

Yes, sure, it’s impossible to inspect and regulate every single thing all the time. But the US is doing a piss poor job where other nations at least have a decent baseline.

This is by design by the way, underfund agencies so that politicians keep getting money from their corporate buddies.

Even essentials such as food production is abysmally inspected in the US due to too few inspectors being available.

Most EU countries don’t have these issues and their “bureaucracy” hasn’t collapsed down onto itself.

Your comment is just another “this is an uniquely American issue and if we were to do it right the sky would come falling down” type argument that is trotted around everytime a fundamental issue, that has been solved elsewhere, is exposed.

arrosenberg• 3 years ago

As others have noted, this is fairly common, and I would argue the correct way to do it. The US government sucks at compliance regulation. I'm sure some countries are better at it, but Americans don't follow rules very well, so trying to police them is a losing affair.

What US regulators ARE good at is investigating and prosecuting. The current issue is that they are not doing what they are good at. In the NCAA if a staffer (say Connor Stallions) commits a major rule violation, the head of the program (Jim Harbaugh) serves a punishment for "failure to supervise". We need the Boeing CEO to spend sometime in a concrete cell for "failure to supervise". Maybe threaten to break them up a bit with the Antitrust division. The next CEO will do a better job of self-regulating.

bonton89• 3 years ago

After Mattel shipped in a bunch of lead painted toys from China a law was passed requiring inspections for everyone except Mattel who were deemed large enough to inspect themselves, even though their negligence was the cause of the law.

7thaccount• 3 years ago

Holy cow...if that is true

mrfox321• 3 years ago

the police in America

asylteltine• 3 years ago

The ones that pay off the government which is… everyone! Except you, the private citizen.

emarsden3• 3 years ago

There are several good reasons for allowing it. One is that it's difficult for a public inspectorate/regulator to maintain the necessary levels of expertise to assess such complex systems (and increasingly so with technological progress). Furthermore, people working inside the industry have much better access to information about the risks than an outside inspector has.

A second reason is simply costs to the public. In 2019, the interim FAA director Dan Elwell testified to the US Senate after the 737 Max disasters that bringing all delegated oversight back into the FAA would require 10000 extra staff and USD 1.8B in costs. There are fairness/democratic arguments to having the costs borne by the industry (and thus indirectly by the privileged portion of the taxpayers who consume air traffic) rather than by all taxpayers.

nashashmi2• 3 years ago

Every industry self inspects. The city inspects its utilities. The construction companies inspect their own work. The only time an outside inspector is used is when the company is doing the work for a client, so the client uses an inspector..

If you screw up inspection repeatedly, then you get replaced. This article is about a weird govt flex.

akira25014• 3 years ago

It completely ruins the point of an inspection.

What is the point of an inspection?

nielsbot2• 3 years ago

Pretty sure the meat industry is

tomohawk• 3 years ago

I live in an affluent community, but the last time I had electrical work done, the government inspector missed 5 serious problems that I found, 3 of which were obvious.

It's really hard for the government to hire and retain competent people to inspect something as easy as residential wiring, even in an affluent community with plenty of money being spent to operate the government.

turquoisevar2• 3 years ago

Car manufacturers self-certify I learned pretty recently.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/12/23998308/tesla-cybertuck...

psychlops• 3 years ago

I guess they could always use inspectors from Airbus since I doubt the US regulators are qualified.

Scoundreller• 3 years ago

Have we concluded that the bolts/nuts/door was assembled incorrectly and not faulty metallurgy or faulty assembly instructions?

Still unsure if the recent door issue was a matter of sloppy assembly (which inspection should find) or sloppy specifications/equipment (which inspection would reinforce, possibly making things worse).

MobiusHorizons• 3 years ago

Obviously the NTSB report is not finalized, but I think we can rule out metallurgy. Even just from the photos you can see that the tabs in the airplane that the door plug rides up against and the corresponding tabs on the door (even though it fell out of the airplane) are still intact. The only other faulty metallurgy issues remaining would be if certain bolts that have not yet been found had failed. The likelihood of that is extremely low given how new the plane is, and there would be evidence of wear on the corresponding parts, which has not been reported. This pretty much guarantees some level of faulty assembly with incorrectly torqued or (most likely) missing bolts. Very much the sort of accident for which aerospace has a process to prevent.

sokoloff• 3 years ago

It's not clear to me which aspects of Boeing's authority are in question even after reading the FT article.

Boeing has both have Designated Engineering Representatives (DERs) who are involved in design certification questions for airframe type certificates and quality inspectors who are involved in certifying individual already-built airframes for airworthiness (conformance to type certification and in condition for safe operation).

The former are usually not called inspectors, but many of the comments here are covering topics that are the domain of DERs rather than inspectors/A&P w/IA.

strangattractor2• 3 years ago

Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the plug in - got a phone call, or shift change, put your diversion here - and forgot to put in the bolts. The inspection - if it occurred - failed to notice. I suspect the documentation on the plane will help identify how and by whom. It could just as easily been some other 3rd party mechanics doing routine maintenance.

treesknees• 3 years ago

I was with you until midway. You're making quite an assumption while the NTSB's investigation is still ongoing. We don't know the root cause - Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.)

United reported loose bolts, not missing bolts. This indicates a more systemic issue and not just a miss by an Alaska Airlines maintenance worker taking a phone call. If the systems involved in the failure are all "Boeing", it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider changes, such as requiring a 3rd party with no self-interest in rubber-stamping the go-ahead, to inspect the work.

graton• 3 years ago

Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.)

The bolts the NTSB can't find are not the ones that have been found to be loose. The bolts they can't find are the ones with the castellated nuts and cotter pin. Very hard to imagine those vibrating loose. And for the door to transit in an upward direction it would really require all four of those to fail or for them to not exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o at around the 7:26 mark has a great explanation of how the door is secured and it seems like as long as there is at least one of the four bolts installed the door can't move.

strangattractor2• 3 years ago

I do not think using words such as "likely" and "I suspect" constitute asserting anything. Those doors and plugs are designed to wedge themselves against the seal when they are in place. Just looking at them from the outside will not give any indication as to whether they are bolted. A few rapid vertical jolts (which might occur in flight) could jar them loose without the bolts. There is no damage to the structure of the plane. Bolts on planes are either carter pinned, safety wired or have a nylon ring to prevent loosening. They generally don't just fall off - not to mention having several fall off simultaneously.

janice19992• 3 years ago

The company responsible for the door installation is Spirit AeroSystems. They've been sued for "widespread quality failures" before [0]. The workers raised issues and were ignored [1] and allegedly told to falsify records.

[0] https://news.yahoo.com/maker-boeing-door-plugs-sued-00335449...

[1] https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-mal...

sschueller• 3 years ago

Let's not pretend that Spirit AeroSystems isn't just basically a sub devision of Boeing.

lamontcg• 3 years ago

They were spun off from Boeing though and I think focusing on them as an entity separate from Boeing for finding fault is the kind of reason why Boeing spun them off. We shouldn't take that bait and should be considering them a division of Boeing (yeah, even though they also sell parts to Airbus).

And Spirit seems entirely financially screwed as a company, they haven't had a positive gross margin since before Covid and on top of that they're now spending half their revenue on interest on their debt. Having Spirit eat those losses is probably great for Boeing's financials and stock price. They should likely be forced by the government to take Spirit over again.

feedforward• 3 years ago

I agree 100%! As a proud, patriotic American I don't want BIG GOVERNMENT interfering with the free market either - even if the windows of airplanes are being blown off mid-flight.

However, do not take this to mean I want the end of the billions of dollars the government gives to Boeing every year, for the R&D to build planes for the military.

janice19992• 3 years ago

It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft.

Is this sarcasm? If not you really need to read the notes from the MAX 7 crash investigation, starting here [0]. That is exactly what Boeing did. MCAS was a hack to fix a plane badly designed to save costs. They rushed to release, ignored incomplete testing, hide information from the FAA, buried MCAS inside another features notes and forced engineers to say that only computer based training was needed for pilots for the new MAX planes despite big differences, all to save themselves and airlines costs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_certification

asdff2• 3 years ago

This entire narrative about Boeing in the media to me just screams of insider trading. The stock went up 68% in a month, then held flat for two weeks, only breaking down the day the screw story breaks. People definitely knew this was coming in December and were selling off what they could without triggering a panic sell off. Perhaps even that November pump and favorable headlines about order sheets at the time was also orchestrated. Interesting to speculate.

mattmaroon2• 3 years ago

The same problem has been found on several plans. Far too many and too high a percent to not be a systemic issue. A phone call or shift change might explain one or two errors, not the same error in many planes across multiple airlines.

They don’t build 100 of those things a day. They don’t even average one a day. Whatever the issue, it went on over quite a period of time.

Given the other issues with the 737 Max line, it is reasonable to believe there would be a good chance of improvement if regulators were more heavily involved.

51Cards2• 3 years ago

Just a note that the bolts problem on other planes is not the same as this one. This plane it seems that the locking bolts were missing entirely, not just loose. Their design requires a cotter pin and castelated nut to disappear and then for them to be completely removed, all 4, before the door can move. They act like a pin locking the door in place so all 4 have to no longer exist vs. just being loose. Of course the final report will tell but it looks like they were just not there. The other loose bolts found do however indicate a lack of attention and inspection in this area on a whole which may have contributed to this slipping through.

roody15• 3 years ago

Hmm they have already found 7 other planes with loose bolts in the same section. On other airlines besides Alaska. Don’t think distracted 3rd party is the issue… seems more like a production problem considering the Alaska airlines 737 was only 2 months old

EasyMark3• 3 years ago

That seems doubtful since it's not happening on airplugs in other planes. Sure a third party could have failed as well, but Boeing's currently suspect inspection standards are far more likely to fail (if true and with the incentive to cut costs as much as possible) than a 3rd party whose sole reason for survival/earnings is to get paid for doing inspections. I trust greed more than I trust a "gentlemen's agreement" to do the right thing.

Animats• 3 years ago

That should have been done years ago, with the first 737-MAX problems.

Guzba• 3 years ago

Seems like an empty threat. The obviously best position for gov is to always have the "you all messed up don't make us come regulate" line available to them. It sounds good. The moment they start regulating, all the mess-ups are mud on their face. Who wants that?

ryanisnan2• 3 years ago

I posted this because I was curious to learn that indeed, aviation companies were doing this.

This type of self-evaluation is pretty common in software, though audits of compliance are also common.

I wonder what sort of scenario might unfold if a company had a team of developers who's sole job it was to test other teams' software in a red-team fashion. I am all too familiar with QA organizations, and the problems in that environment, and am all for developers conducting their own testing as a fundamental part of development, but what if we took it a step further?

htrp• 3 years ago

I wonder what sort of scenario might unfold if a company had a team of developers who's sole job it was to test other teams' software in a red-team fashion. I am all too familiar with QA organizations, and the problems in that environment, and am all for developers conducting their own testing as a fundamental part of development, but what if we took it a step further?

You get a lot of infighting between the development and validation teams. Big US banks have this for (statistical) models already.

ryanisnan2• 3 years ago

Is the infighting you speak of politically motivated? Is this a QA vs. Dev mentality?

wanderingmind• 3 years ago

As an aside, For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another.

gottorf5• 3 years ago

Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another.

Absolutely! Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail, and fail much sooner than anybody thinks. Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong.

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition". And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. Otherwise, people suffer.

tw04• 3 years ago

And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have.

This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as much power as you think the worst possible person should have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of. What you're describing is anarchy.

You build checks and balances, but you cannot have a functioning government without the assumption that the people you put in charge will act in good faith, but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith.

TylerE4• 3 years ago

And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have

The problem is the worst people NOT IN GOVERNMENT already have more power than that, and can thus easily crush such a government and turn it into a de facto oligarchy.

baryphonic4• 3 years ago

Just for reference, the "ambition must be made to counteract ambition" line comes from Federalist 51, also by Madison.

janalsncm3• 3 years ago

What they failed to recognize is that factions (i.e. political parties) will inevitably form so they should be regulated. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties. They found the time to mention the Post office but not political parties.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition

Sounds nice but it’s fundamental a recipe for getting nothing done. And just because the government doesn’t do it doesn’t mean it won’t be done. Private entities, with far fewer restraints (any ambitions to restrain them are of course counteracted) will naturally fill in the gaps. It’s why the US has private companies selling expensive tax software rather than a simple system which would benefit everyone.

huytersd• 3 years ago

China hasn’t reached it yet but once Xi is out they have to hope they can find another benevolent king or the entire system is going to come crashing down.

graemep• 3 years ago

Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong.

I do not think you have picked a good example. Mao was a pretty nasty piece of work. The relatively prosperity of modern China is the result of abandoning his ideology - and a large chunk is the result of reversing the damage he and his followers did.

There has been no line of good people in communist and post communist China. It failed from the start.

OtherShrezzing• 3 years ago

Strangely the UK, which has a no formal constitution and an unimaginable number "gentleman's agreement" parliamentary traditions - with absolutely no recourse for political malfeasance - has faired remarkably well for hundreds of years. The entire system is built on the notion that "the next leader will probably not undermine the entire system". It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic threats throughout its history and was (until the last decade) considered a bastion of political stability.

ajmurmann2• 3 years ago

I think a better way of phrasing that is "We cannot ask for better people. The right system makes the wrong people do the right thing". Russ Roberts sometimes says something like this and probably quoted someone else who I forgot

PKop• 3 years ago

Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail

They all depend on this. There is no set-it-and-forget-it algorithm that you can put in place that self-perpetuates good government. There are "people" at every point along the chain of any government including those writing its laws, enforcing them, interpreting laws in court and in many bureaucratic institutions that may or may not ignore these rules or undermine them.

I think every system has a life-cycle like an organism, and some aspects of degradation and corruption are almost unavoidable in practice if not in principle.

wolverine8765• 3 years ago

Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong.

Off topic, but are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? It seems that for the Communist 'dynasty', it fell apart immediately - that is, it never got anywhere. I'm not sure the Communist dynasty is any worse than the Qing or Ming or others before it, at least in that respect.

JohnFen4• 3 years ago

And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have.

That doesn't make real sense to me, because that means that government is impossible. I prefer the idea that "desire for office should be disqualification for office."

philistine• 3 years ago

Every Westminster-style democracy by your logic should have turned into a dictature. There is nothing stopping a governor general from seizing power but tradition and expectations.

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

Over many discussions with American friends I have been persuaded that a governmental system that is fundamentally untrusting of the various components is one of the main features of American democracy.

blibble9• 3 years ago

Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy.
The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances

this is a very US centric view

constitutional monarchies seem to work as well, if not better by the various democracy/stability indicies

Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.

the near term survival of the current US system certainly looks far from certain at present

hangonhn2• 3 years ago

Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer over a republican democracy anyways? The monarch wields no real power -- even if on paper they may still retain a great deal.

The US system is notoriously bad to get working and really seems to only work for the US. Anywhere else we have tried it has ended with some kind of failure. However, it's reasonable to call the parliamentary systems like the UK republican democracies and those have been emulated else where with a higher degree of success.

DennisP• 3 years ago

It turned out the US system depended more on human virtuousness than many of us realized. Personally I've been kinda shocked to find out how much was just based on norms and traditions with no enforcement at all.

foldr• 3 years ago

If the goal is just sustaining government then there are lots of countries without those features that have a longer history of sustained government than the US.

quickthrowman2• 3 years ago

There are three governments that have existed longer than the US. Sweden, UK, Denmark.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fo...

Microstates don’t count.

TylerE4• 3 years ago

While the Federalist Papers are great works, I don't agree with taking them as enlightened guidance from on high. They were theorizing. No one of them really knew how a modern democracy/republic would actually work in practice.

Remember, the authors of the constitution (large overlap) stated on the record that they expected they got a lot of it wrong, and expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced once actual experience was obtained.

Yes, for those on one side of the spectrum the ruling orthodoxy is textual originalism. The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers.

adamisom• 3 years ago

you could even say that the USA founders’ vision is the worst ever tried—except for all those others.

gottorf5• 3 years ago

The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers.
expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced

Would they have? There exists a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and it seems reasonable to me that the Supreme Court would insist on textual originalism until the text is amended through that legal process.

InTheArena6• 3 years ago

The Supreme Court itself wasn't really defined by the constitution - they conveyed a need for it - but not how to structure it, given the lack of historical data. They also foresaw the problems with parties but didn't take enough steps to retire them.

This is why things like Roe V. Wade are (/were) so controversial. Does the Supreme Court have the right to imagine new rights to abortion with no textual basis in the Constitution? Even RBG didn't think so. OTOH, given the recent election results, Abortion is finally starting to become settled law - something the USSC could not do. Democracy works again.

That said - they got far more right then wrong, and ditching the lessons they learned first are a big reason we are in the state we are in now.

Once upon a time, leaders actually had to learn history to be leaders. Now-adays, not so much.

int_19h8• 3 years ago

The Federalist Papers themselves point out that Constitution is not meant to be a perfect document, but merely the best that everyone could agree on.

"I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. The compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection spring from such materials?"

int_19h8• 3 years ago

Yet at the same time, when re-reading them, I often find it striking just how relevant they are to some of our problems today, even though they were written by people in very different overall circumstances. My favorite for the past decade or so has been Federalist #22:

"Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."

"But this is not all: what at first sight may seem a remedy, is, in reality, a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."

"It is not difficult to discover, that a principle of this kind gives greater scope to foreign corruption, as well as to domestic faction, than that which permits the sense of the majority to decide; though the contrary of this has been presumed. The mistake has proceeded from not attending with due care to the mischiefs that may be occasioned by obstructing the progress of government at certain critical seasons. When the concurrence of a large number is required by the Constitution to the doing of any national act, we are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely TO BE DONE, but we forget how much good may be prevented, and how much ill may be produced, by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods. "

hash8724• 3 years ago

The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another

Completely American myopic POV. Stable, healthy democracies that are unicameral parliamentary systems include Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, and Sweden. (Most of those countries don't have strong judicial review either. Or federalism). That's without even getting into bicameral countries where the upper house is actually a lot weaker/just for show.

You don't have to separate the executive & the head of state, and you don't need to have checks & balances- that's propaganda for presidential systems. In fact I'd say the opposite is true- it's the countries with the checks & balances (by having a separately elected legislature and president) that are much more unstable and prone to autocracy. See Juan Linz on the Perils of Presidentialism

iteria• 3 years ago

Look at all those nations you listed that are very homogeneous. I want a nation with significant culture tradition differences listed that is like that. American exceptionalist is mostly BS but we do have some ways that we are very unique as a nation and that is how many different kinds of major cultures we have hanging out in US. People handwave the US as all the same but that is very much not the case. Even for as good as American indoctrination is, nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living in Florida. What rural urban even means in both states is so different. And we've been this heterogeneous.

I'm willing to accept your premise, but I want an example where there isn't one overwhelmingly dominant culture. I'll accept 2 equally dominant cultures.

InTheArena6• 3 years ago

Comparing tiny countries at the edge of Europe and the edge of the world with the the US as super-power is a weakness.

Every country has adopted American Republicanism with a clearly defined and written constitution that has some form of separation of powers. None of these, for example, allow the PM to act as an absolute dictator without some form of emergency. The difference is simply in whether the president has an independent mandate from the parliament or not.

refurb4• 3 years ago

I mean, why not go full bore and do the Singaporean system? An effective dictatorship? It's a great example of a stable, healthy system (until it isn't).

notJim• 3 years ago

The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances

I don't think this viewpoint can be supported empirically. The US government has much stronger checks and balances than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split possible between the executive and legislative branch. I think the result of this in the US is that the government tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts heighten without compromise or resolution for decades until they reach a breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise.

Similarly, judicial review seems to be much much weaker in most countries. In the US, the supreme court can strike down a law with immediate effect of nullifying that law. It's been hard for me to find comparisons, but it seems like in other countries, there's some combination of judicial review being only advisory, or not having immediate effect. So in some countries, the judicial branch says a law is un-constitutional, and the legislative branch can ignore it, or has some period of time to defend or revise the law, rather than the law being immediately struck. This is fundamentally undemocratic. That's a good thing some times, but not good other times.

In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. This does not seem like the hallmark of an effective democracy to me.

returningfory23• 3 years ago

In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances.

I agree that the the Supreme Court is more important because of the inability of Congress to pass regular legislation.

However I don't think the root cause is "checks and balances". I think the root cause is the (unconstitutional) Senate filibuster. This prevents parties who control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency from passing laws. It is often the case that this happens (2016-18 for Republicans; 2020-22 for Democrats) and in those periods it should be possible to pass many laws and thus diminish the role of the Supreme Court. But the filibuster prevents this.

mason55• 3 years ago

The US government has much stronger checks and balances than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split possible between the executive and legislative branch. I think the result of this in the US is that the government tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts heighten without compromise or resolution for decades until they reach a breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise.

Yeah, if I understand, the original idea of the checks & balances in the US was that each branch of government would be fighting to become the most powerful and so they all had ways to stop each other. But it wasn't really designed to deal with the idea that political parties would grow in power enough to supersede the branches of government as the top-level entities fighting for power.

This idea that you'd be able to form a large enough coalition across Congress, the Supreme Court and the Presidency that you could get all three branches to work together wasn't really considered back then. With more localized politics that was basically impossible and so the individual branches were fighting for power.

Our form of government should be updated to reflect the reality of more powerful political parties.

ethbr12• 3 years ago

I'd argue that the US biparty system tends to have fewer checks and balances than a parliamentary system.

In many ways, it's winner take all. President + 50%+1 in the lower legislature + 50%+1 in the upper legislature = a huge amount of power.

Historically, I think it's been exceedingly rare to have as finely balanced government as recent times have featured.

And to me, the Supreme Court is less about the people currently sitting on it, and more about the fact that they have all dedicated their lives to the legal profession.

They may rule one way or another on hot issues, for personal reasons. But you're checking with people who all hold the rule of law (as a concept) much higher than the legislature or executive. Which is a valuable check to have.

In that way, they're more like the UK's Speaker of the House of Commons.

AnthonyMouse11• 3 years ago

The US government has much stronger checks and balances than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split possible between the executive and legislative branch. I think the result of this in the US is that the government tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads to dissatisfaction and instability.

The problem in the US is actually the opposite -- the checks and balances were intended to be stronger but have been substantially weakened, in a way that creates instability.

In the original constitutional framework the federal government was meant to be extremely limited. Senators were appointed by state legislators so that they would limit expansion of federal power at the expense of state power, but that was changed and deprived the states of their primary representation in the federal government. Which not coincidentally was immediately followed by a massive expansion of federal control.

Which was itself meant to be much more limited. The original intention of the interstate commerce clause was for the federal government to handle things like mail fraud, where you have a perpetrator and a victim in different states and the victims have no representation in the perpetrator's jurisdiction. It has since been interpreted to allow the federal government to regulate essentially anything, infamously including non-commerce that occurs solely within a single state.

In the intended frameworks the deadlocks were fully intentional. If you couldn't reach widespread consensus then you couldn't do something at the federal level, doing things at the federal level was disfavored in general, and that was fine because anything outside the scope of federal power or without widespread consensus could be handled by the states. Laboratories of democracy.

But then we made it too easy to do things at the federal level, and of course power-hungry sociopaths are attracted to centralized power. So instead of the federal government being weak and uninteresting because strong checks and balances limited it from being abused, it became the battleground for winner-take-all popularity contests.

NoboruWataya2• 3 years ago

Other democracies do generally have their own checks and balances. They might not be the same set of checks and balances as the US, but it's difficult to say as a whole that they are weaker. It's true that often the division of the executive and legislative branches is rather weak. But on the other hand there is often a stronger division between the judicial and other branches as judges are appointed independently. There are plenty of countries out there with very strong constitutional courts as well.

I'm also not sure I agree that the US system is necessarily less sustainable than those other systems. A lot of European democracies are younger than the US, and some of them are more frequently deadlocked. I think effectiveness and sustainability are orthogonal concepts here (some would say they are diametrically opposed...)

Adverblessly• 3 years ago

In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise.

Alternatively, you get brinkmanship where you have a coalition of 53.33% where every party in the coalition that has >=4% of the votes (a.k.a. all of them) will threaten to bring down the entire coalition unless they get their most extreme demand. Incidentally, they are still trying to bring down the supreme court.

Personally, I'd gladly welcome some political deadlock over here.

parineum• 3 years ago

This seems like a very presentism viewpoint. I don't think your points hold historically nor do they acknowledge that "strong checks and balances" and the adversarialness of congress is the same thing and considered a feature, not a bug.

JumpCrisscross• 3 years ago

in the US is that the government tends to deadlock

This is a feature. In a unitary state, it would be suicide. But in a federation, national disagreement prompts gridlock which automatically devolves the question.

baryphonic4• 3 years ago

Madison elaborates also on this theme in Federalist 51, but with separation of powers rather than federalism & factions.

Consultant32452• 3 years ago

The form of government is irrelevant compared to the culture that is being governed.

Japanese cities are incredible because the Japanese culture demands safety, cleanliness and beauty. You could make just about any change to the form of government you want and the result will be the same.

throw0101d• 3 years ago

For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.

And yet in Federalist 55 virtue is needed to sustain self-government:

Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.

* https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp

The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another.

A particular faction can gain control over the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial in the US, and then they can collude unless individuals choose to follow the Constitution.

Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported.
In a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, the then-president told two fellow Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the state election's certification, saying they would look "terrible" and must "fight for our country," according to recordings of the call reviewed by the Michigan news outlet.

* https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-of...

There are no "institutions" (to protect things), only people.

blibble9• 3 years ago

Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported.

it is utter madness that politicians are involved in anyway in certifying the results of elections

janalsncm3• 3 years ago

Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.

All governments fail, it’s only a question of when. The stability of the US is in no small part due to its geography and natural wealth. Having two oceans on each side and more arable land than you know what to do with is far more of an asset anything written on paper. It seriously reduces the threat of external and internal conflict, and the US got this for a song.

Further, there’s a strong argument to be made that the US did not last this entire time. The centralization that happened after the Civil War created a fundamentally different government than was created in 1789. Through the process of incorporation, constitutional amendments were enforced on states which created a far more uniform country.

happytiger• 3 years ago

This is precisely why the Department of Homeland Security was such a bad idea.

For anyone interested, the only thing I can add of use to this thoughtful comment is a link to the paper:

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

ed_balls• 3 years ago

government that depends on human virtuousness will fail.

that was the crucial difference between communism and capitalism. Communism used virtuousness only, when capitalism used virtuousness and greed. Communism failed.

jltsiren• 3 years ago

Checks and balances will fail without virtue. There are plenty of examples of that around the world. Checks and balances are fundamentally nothing more than words on a paper. They cannot be stronger than the elites' belief in their legitimacy.

refurb4• 3 years ago

That's true to an extent, but you're viewing it in too black and white a way.

A system with checks and balances can be subverted, but it's still better than a system without them.

wolverine8765• 3 years ago

In addition are other essential solutions, which accept the reality that we all have virtue and evil inside us; we are all biologically the same as MLK and Stalin, as Lincoln and the slave-owners (and the slaves).

* Good people, which is people who are at that moment able to bring out the virtue in themselves, must act to promote virtue. If they sit on the sidelines, the results are predictable - other people won't do it.

* Good people can specifically develop and institutionalize systems - of government, society, culture - that bring out the good in people. It won't happen by accident, and plenty of bad people will do the opposite with intent.

If you think these things aren't possible, look at the incredible accomplishments of our ancestors, as we live in a world of freedom, peace, and prosperity absolutely unmatched in human history. What will we build for our descendents? Or will we throw away our inheritance?

pyuser583• 3 years ago

Sounds very Puritan.

soperj• 3 years ago

putting multiple factions with different interests against one another

wasn't that how we ended up with WW1?

smrtinsert• 3 years ago

But some guy told me disbanding congress and the Supreme Court was the way

eduction• 3 years ago

Neither this nor any of the top replies make even a cursory effort to connect these thoughts to the friggin article this conversation is supposed to be about. It’s literally dozens of irrelevant comments sitting like deadweight at the top of the post.

smdyc1• 3 years ago

This makes me think about the Roman Republic. Yes, it failed in the end, but the idea of having two Consuls is appealing to check each others ambition. As an aside, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast has a multiparter called Death Throes of the Republic which is highly entertaining.

Edit: can you imagine what it would be like though if the US had a dual presidential system and Trump and Obama were both in power at the same time? Somehow I think it would be more dysfunctional.

PH95VuimJjqBqy• 3 years ago

that assumes one side doesn't win, which is why we're having problems now.

That's literally what "too big to fail" means, it means they've won.

cromka4• 3 years ago

Can someone explain why the focus is on FAA, while there's also EASA and others? Do they also allow Boeing to self-inspect and self-evaluate themselves like FAA does?

Can FAA and Boeing be really the only ones to blame here? If Boeing was in bed with FAA that much and they were dropping the ball on safety, shouldn't EASA's own process take note of that and extra-scrutinize Boeing planes during certification for European sky compliance? Especially that it would play in Airbus' advantage, and I am sure some allegiance between the two is definitely in place to some extent at least.

How did, for example, EASA allow the MCAS on 737 Max? I mean we know Boeing abused the FAA trust in their process, but why did EASA not raise concern over the same?

Something is missing here and I don't appreciate that somehow everyone seems to forget that those planes are absolutely not certified by the FAA for use by the rest of the world. At the very least, EASA is as shitty at certifying those planes as FAA is. Or, actually, is even worse, considering that in theory the reason FAA allowed it is because Boeing took advantage of them, meanwhile EASA should have done the full re-certification?

yyyfb• 3 years ago

I don't know if that's at play, but the specific door configuration that Alaska 1282 had is apparently not that common in Europe. I'm sure EASA will take note though.

cromka4• 3 years ago

I'm sure EASA will take note though.

There are no 737s operated in that configuration in Europe, so while EASA accepted FAA's grounding notice, it didn't really affect the EU.

But that's beyond the point. The point is those flawed quality controls that Boeing does on behalf of FAA could in theory affect other areas, not just the plug door. And so I wonder if EASA also allows Boeing to self-certify, or do they perform the checks themselves?

jeffrallen• 3 years ago

Pretty sure airplanes in Europe have safety critical bolts in them, and pretty sure they need to be torqued right and double checked.

So the doors are kind of a distraction from the apparent fact that Boeing has forgotten how to make airplanes which do not threaten the lives of all those in and below them.

emarsden3• 3 years ago

There are indeed several other examples of this partial delegation of authority for decisions concerning safety, either to industry players or to third parties, though the FAA "ODA" mechanism is probably the most prominent. EASA's mechanism is similar in many respects, but more focused on properties of the oversight entity within the designer-manufacturer firms than on properties of the individuals doing the work. I wrote a discussion paper on precisely these issues a few weeks ago, which discusses some of the questions related to independence from commercial pressure, access to expertise, and so on:

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ALZ0IuyZGHImolY&id=D37...

cromka4• 3 years ago

Woah, amazing!

xenadu022• 3 years ago

I don't recall if it is just by handshake agreement or in an actual treaty but the country where the manufacturer of a plane operates is the one designated authority over that manufacturer.

FAA issues Airworthiness directives and sets rules Boeing has to follow. EASA largely defers to the FAA (not always but in almost everything).

Similarly the FAA follows EASA when it comes to issues with Airbus.

Both FAA and EASA requirements are roughly alined anyway so it doesn't make that much difference.

Boeing has been coasting on their engineer-led culture from the past. They're only allowed to self-certify on things that are not "safety critical" so having the FAA review that designation seems more useful.

FWIW when Boeing merged with McDonnel-Douglas the GE protégé crew took over. The decision to move headquarters was done deliberately so the machinists and engineers couldn't go complain to the bean counters in person.

Also think about Boeing setting up a factor in South Carolina and fighting so hard to prevent that factory from unionizing. They're focused on giving labor a smaller share of the pie... on some of the most expensive (and formerly profitable) things humans build, with a decade-long order book where every single unit they make is pre-sold years in advance. (Recent screwups have hurt them badly though).

Do you want an airplane built by an accountant-run company that cares about finding the cheapest most disposable workers to build the airplane? Whether it matters or whether the union sucks is irrelevant. The fact that Boeing management was so determined to screw the workers who assemble these planes says a lot and none of it is good.

cromka4• 3 years ago

FAA issues Airworthiness directives and sets rules Boeing has to follow. EASA largely defers to the FAA (not always but in almost everything).
Similarly the FAA follows EASA when it comes to issues with Airbus.
Both FAA and EASA requirements are roughly alined anyway so it doesn't make that much difference.

Thanks. That then explains it. Although I have a feeling this mutual trust has its expiration date and I would be surprised if EASA didn't actually start raising concerns over the FAA's credibility.

stevehawk• 3 years ago

I believe that's only true for planes flying over/through other countries, and it is not universal. In order for a plane to be sold in EASA governed countries it has to be certified by the EASA. So in effect, the 737 is getting certified twice. In general aviation there's this common misconception that the Cirrus SR line can't recover from a stall, which is because the FAA drops spin recovery testing if you ship with a BRS (parachute). Reality is, when the SR line was certified by the EASA it was required to demonstrate spin recovery. Another discrepancy is that the EASA does not recognize "experimental" has a category of aircraft, so an FAA classified home built experimental that flies to an EASA country would not be allowed to take off after unless the national government has rules that allow it (also applies to ultralights).

MilStdJunkie• 3 years ago

EASA generally respects FAA activities unless something's extraordinarily fuggity fuggity boop. The reverse is also true, so you can get EASA auditors in a US plant. . but woo boy, there is no way to express the sheer panic we would all feel when we learned our pet FAA DER was going to be replaced by some steely-eyed Aryan bastard from EASA with his micrometers and tiny little notebooks. Those guys did not screw around. Speaking anecdotally, of course.

I suspect that the EASA/EUROCAE guys were often "accidentally" brought in when FAA was getting sick of us trying to slip stuff by them. Sort of like, "Try that Consumables trick with me again, and I'm sending Hans"

jamwil• 3 years ago

Not much of a sense of humour around work, the Germans.

iancmceachern• 3 years ago

Should have never been given.

Dowwie• 3 years ago

[January 2021] Boeing Charged with 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy and Agrees to Pay over $2.5 Billion: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-...

shadowgovt• 3 years ago

FWIW, it did NASA wonders when they created the IV&V program to strip individual facilities the right to self-inspect missions.

nashashmi2• 3 years ago

It is sad to see the number of commments here and no one mentions that a manufacturer not inspecting their own work is like an employee who does not check his own work, or an engineering team that does not check its work.

Boeing is great! It does great work. But yes, it lost several moments of pride, and that does not work great for Boeing.

In order for a company to do better, you need to take an honest multi-year review of their processes and cite multiple issues, and see through multiple corrections. Then we will have a well corrected company. And that is what Boeing needs, along with a bifurcation for increased competition.

mattcantstop• 3 years ago

40,000 deaths each year in the United States resulting from cars, and nobody lifts a finger. The side of a plane pops off a few miles up in the air and everybody loses their minds.

ironmagma• 3 years ago

You're making your (our) cause look bad. There are a lot of issues with cars but this isn't one of them. Cars essentially work as intended, and when they don't there are recalls, lawsuits, and NHTSA investigations.

error9348• 3 years ago

There are all kinds of externalities, including safety, which are ignored. US tax policy which allows write offs only for large vehicles which are more likely to cause deaths. Tire emissions. Congestion pricing -- common in Europe -- needs years or reviews and lawsuits. NHTSA doesn't require bicycle test devices.

nickvec2• 3 years ago

And almost all of these deaths are the result of user (driver) error, whereas passengers on a flight have no say in Boeing's design of their planes and/or whether the door gets ripped off mid-flight. You're comparing apples and oranges here.

philipwhiuk• 3 years ago

Because passengers are incapable of choosing not to fly?

_ea1k• 3 years ago

I wouldn't say that nobody lifts a finger. There's a lot of analysis going on each year to try to improve the situation. And vehicle automation is seemingly starting to make progress on reducing various collision types, especially with pedestrians.

But the fixes are much more complex and will necessarily take a lot more time.

If your point is that we don't think enough about vehicular deaths, except for the ones that are in some way newsworthy, then I think you are completely right. Even worse, we don't account for lives saved and this skews perception in odd and potentially detrimental ways.

karaterobot• 3 years ago

There are lots of safety regulations around cars. Not only manufacturers, but drivers themselves are regulated. People who sell cars are regular. Streets are regulated. Signage is regulated. Every aspect is heavily regulated, and this regulation is enforced by police tens of thousands of times a day. I'm not even sure what you could mean when you say nobody is lifting a finger. Do you imagine there's some scenario in which nobody ever dies in a car, and this is what would be required to declare that a finger had been lifted?

will5421• 3 years ago

Who said show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome?

nielsbot2• 3 years ago

Please f*cking do it

inglor_cz• 3 years ago

"Nemo judex in causa sua" - "No one should be judge in their own cause"

Technology has changed a lot since the Roman Empire, but human nature is still the same. We shouldn't ignore such old principles just because it is 2024.

nickvec2• 3 years ago

It's absurd that Boeing even has the right to self-inspect their planes. Logically, it makes zero sense, but money talks I guess.

baskint• 3 years ago

you got to be kidding me!!! is this for real? wtf!

InTheArena6• 3 years ago

While you at it, do what the Biden Administration threatened to do to Musk - remove Boeing's CEO's ability to be CEO of a large public company.

feedsmgmt• 3 years ago

At this point why allow anyone to self inspect or self report anything? What's the upside to allowing the risk?

EasyMark3• 3 years ago

The upside is obviously that it's cheaper for the government. However, given Boeing's failures, that is no longer a reasonable bet to hedge on. We need to stop it before air travel becomes even more dangerous than car travel. Self-regulation with occasional friendly audits did work for a few decades, though, but Boeing got lazy and cocky and the FAA got too friendly and incestuous.

EasyMark3• 3 years ago

That would be a very logical step to take given their recent history, they don't seem to be able to police themselves since the bean counters are in charge rather than engineering/long-term centered executives.

whiplash451• 3 years ago

Wait, the inspection of planes is not done by an independent 3rd party?

pdonis4• 3 years ago

My question would be, what bonehead gave manufacturers [edited] the right to self-inspect planes in the first place without having their "fox guarding the henhouse" alarms go off?

We're lucky that our aircraft safety record has stayed as good as it has for this long.

mcswell• 3 years ago

Airplane manufacturers--which means Boeing--not airlines.

pdonis4• 3 years ago

Oops, yes. I was able to edit the post to correct this. Thanks for the catch!

sfifs• 3 years ago

My guess of what may have happened reading between the lines of many reports is - Boeing originally instructed Spirit to loosely fit the plug and not secure it because they planned to remove it to fit out the interiors. In this case Boeing would be accountable to secure the plug door after the interior is done to the right specs.

Somewhere down the line, Boeing probably decided not to remove the plug to fit the interiors and instead just load them through the main bigger openings only. They probably did not document/log this change in practice and think through implications and probably did not update instructions to Spirit to secure the plug door going forward (or maybe they did but Spirit didn't pay attention)

Hence we have many planes with Spirit assuming Boeing will secure it as per the previous practice and Boeing not securing it because they didn't remove it while fitting out.

Now the obvious question is if Boeing or Spirit has deviated from documented production practice in this area, have they deviated in other areas and hence the entire production process of max lines will probably need to be re-audited

stuckkeys• 3 years ago

Any public facing service should not be allowed to certify internally. Other than quality assurance ofc, external certification should be mandatory and be done by certified agents.

aviat• 3 years ago

how about getting SpaceX to disrupt the airliner market?

Or how about US Govt can funding a second airliner manufacturer?

US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

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