U.S. is said to open criminal inquiry into Boeing

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/business/boeing-criminal-inquiry-alaska-airlines-flight.html

by carabiner • 2 years ago

639 492 2 years ago

As they should.

I said somewhat unpopularly at the time that this is not an incident that should meet with curious blameless fact finding but instead the many responsible parties need to be stomped for negligence by the legal system.

Boeing’s board needs to be fired and some executives probably need jail time. Given the defense position of Boeing, the executive branch should probably take some direct action outside the judicial system once there are some more clear cause and effect facts about what’s going on at Boeing.

nharada• 2 years ago

I suspect the people charged will be low level mechanics and assembly people and maybe a first level manager for appearances sake. You really think anyone at the executive level is getting arrested for this?

kabes• 2 years ago

Sure it will be executives, since they get paid so much for all the responsibility they carry /s

jmspring• 2 years ago

The whole VW/Audi dieselgate thing took out a couple execs, but not the main ones. This may be the same.

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

You really think anyone at the executive level is getting arrested for this?

There is a current smell of Boeing not being particularly cooperative with investigation. That is the usual path that gets somewhat more important people charged for committing crimes. Various brands of lying, conspiracy, and evidence tampering where people get charge for what goes on during the investigation instead of the actual incidents.

rainsford6• 2 years ago

What makes people so convinced the door plug problem is obviously something that should be blamed on the executives? At the risk of being accused of shilling for corporate executives, convincing yourself that low level people can't be responsible for an issue before responsibility is determined feels like the wrong approach.

olliej• 2 years ago

not an incident that should meet with curious blameless fact finding

The NTSB "fact finding" is intentionally and necessarily blameless, because if it becomes a prosecutorial investigation then you lose cooperation of everyone involved. If you lose that cooperation, you can't work out what caused an accident, and so the same accidents keeps recurring.

The entire point of the NTSB is to find what caused the accident, and that's not going to be "Sarah was tired that day", "Frank was distracted by his kid's academic struggles", etc. That might be relevant (a common action by budget carriers use to be frequent schedule changes for line pilots, so that they had "sufficient" sleep by the law but were being forced to work through their circadian low, etc - stopping that took multiple crashes where the NTSB said "this is the cause"), but it isn't going to be the cause here. Afaict it takes multiple people to install the plug, all of whom failed to do or check the bolts, Boeing has a lot of cross checks, none of them caught this, Alaska did an acceptance flight and had performed maintenance, but did not catch this, etc.

Firing the mechanics involved doesn't tell you why they messed up, it doesn't tell you how this got through checks, it doesn't do anything other than provide retribution. It doesn't even do anything to the people who presumably created the environment that allowed this to happen.

So instead of trying to get retribution, we try to discover what made it possible for this to happen, so we can stop the same thing happening again in future. That is how flying got as safe as it is today.

People who cause accidents due to criminal behavior, or corporations that cause the accidents due to criminal behavior, can be charged or sued, but saying "I want people punished so lets sabotage the accident investigation, and inhibit our ability to prevent them in future" is counter productive.

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

The NTSB "fact finding" is intentionally and necessarily blameless, because if it becomes a prosecutorial investigation then you lose cooperation of everyone involved. If you lose that cooperation, you can't work out what caused an accident, and so the same accidents keeps recurring.

The NTSB is a lovely organization but they're already calling out Boeing for not cooperating. They should continue doing what they're doing but a separate independent criminal investigation is in order. Jail time and large fines also help accidents from not recurring, preferably also legislative action and Congressional investigations. What is actually in order now is the legal discovery process to uncover what people are talking about, recording, failing to record, and otherwise documenting to bring to light the sources of the failed safety and reliability of these planes.

NegativeK• 2 years ago

The blameless fact finding is necessary to know who to blame. The NTSB needs to know the answers to a bunch of whys about how things got to this point so they can work to prevent it in other aircraft. That requires them using their time-testing blameless process.

Afterward, criminal prosecutors can use those facts as leads to pull on when doing their investigation.

abenga• 2 years ago

Isn't this by definition not blameless?

rainsford6• 2 years ago

Boeing’s board needs to be fired and some executives probably need jail time.

You're advocating for punishing specific people before any evidence has pointed to their guilt, which feels like the opposite extreme of treating everyone as blameless (which is also not what blameless fact finding is about, as other replies correctly pointed out).

colechristensen4• 2 years ago

which is also not what blameless fact finding is about, as other replies correctly pointed out

Blameless fact finding is for dealing with errors and failures made in good faith. Far too many things have happened for these to be "good faith" errors and evidence and attitudes which have come out have made this plain. You stop being nice about it when foul play is the most reasonable suspicion at this scale.

You're advocating for punishing specific people before any evidence has pointed to their guilt

The Boeing board should be replaced for what is already public.

executives probably need jail

Notice the qualifier "probably". What I'm saying is this is what criminality looks like, the exact nature is still being investigated, but it should and is now being investigated like a crime instead of the normal flow for accidents which is the blaming fact finding which is only useful when everybody is actually interested in safety.

Dah00n• 2 years ago

Ordered list of reasons I don't believe anything worthwhile will happen:

1. Boeing is a huge defence contractor with both civil and military products sold worldwide. A big loss to Boeing will be seen as a big loss to American hegemony.

2. GOTO 1

Iulioh2• 2 years ago

Ordered list of reasons I don't believe anything worthwhile will happen

----------------

You can still cut a few heads, the hydra has plenty.

What I'm wondering, could this lead to the government forcing Boeing to "be less profitable"?

At the end of the day that's the question.

andy_ppp• 2 years ago

Actually you could argue having one of your biggest defence contractors behave like this is a bigger loss to American power than holding their feet to the fire and trying to develop a more engineering focused culture.

TheLoafOfBread3• 2 years ago

A big loss to Boeing will be seen as a big loss to American hegemony

I mean if USA will decide to isolate itself as trend suggest, then they will lose that hegemony anyway. So at least they could have safe planes

forkerenok2• 2 years ago

Are you referring to Trump's rhetoric?

I think that would "only" affect the broader foreign policy.

My take is that arms trade is a good business (my assumption) and unprincipled foreign policy could see more indiscriminate trading taking place. I.e. the opposite effect.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

You forgot one thing: Boeing is not only under FAA and US scrutiny, all their processes and planes are certified by EASA, and others, as well. The B737 Max crashes alread harmed the trust between EASA and FAA, if nothing happens now, EASA might very well take seperate action. I have a hunch Boeing doesn't want that.

Edit: There is also a couple of high ranking people that are "holders" of those certifications, Design Organisation Approval and Production Organisation Approval in EASA parlance. Forgot the exactvtitle of those people, but usually they aee at least VP level, sometimes even C-level and always a seperate one from Quality. They are vetted by the national authorities and sign to confirm their obligation, incl. legal, to adhere to the stabdards and do everything to meet those. In Europe, negligence of this can lead to criminal prosecution and jail time. No idea how this is done under FAA regulations. Boeing peopably doesn't fall under EASA jurisdiction in that regard so, having not operations in Europe.

heavyset_go• 2 years ago

Good, it's only out of sheer luck that nobody was sitting close enough to get sucked out mid-flight. On a full flight people would have died.

userbinator• 2 years ago

If you look at the widely-circulated video, someone was sitting one seat over next to the hole. I believe seatbelt use is what prevented them from being forcibly expelled from the aircraft. This is another event that shows why keeping your seatbelt on whenever you're in the seat is a good idea.

pauljurczak3• 2 years ago

Will there be a heavy discount for a seat next to the door plug on 737 Max from now on?

rightbyte• 2 years ago

I think there was a window that broke on some flight and the passenger next to the window died from hitting the window frame.

epolanski7• 2 years ago

I'm not sure he would've with seat belts on.

At a higher altitude and higher pressure difference, without seat belts, 100%.

But few miles in the air with seat belts there's not going to be a decompression that will strap you out of your seat belts.

xyst• 2 years ago

There was a small segment on Boeing recently and the industry as a whole on John Oliver’s show. Boeing being the main issue and how this company has repeatedly shit the bed multiple times since the takeover and shift of HQ to Chicago.

But one of the interesting facts I learned: the FAA has “regulators” that are paid by the airline industry themselves. This is largely due to how inexperienced the FAA is with the manufacturing process and thus rely on the industry to self-regulate.

Someone may raise an issue on the ground floor of these airline manufacturers. But the complaints are sent to people paid for by the airline manufacturers.

The conflict of interest is high. Yet FAA thinks this is okay.

b1122• 2 years ago

The conflict of interest is high. Yet FAA thinks this is okay.

No, because you're leaving out context.

They abide by this, due to a limited budget, and no ability to hire, train, and maintain such capabilities.

Amd I'm willing to bet politicians on both sides of the coin have contributed to this.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

Also many Americans - including many here on HN - reflexively oppose regulation. That's one reason regulator's budgets are cut (and now GOP-appointed judges are hamstringing the 'administrative state). And then when a private business does something wrong, the same people ask, 'where are the regulators'?

lultimouomo• 2 years ago

The problem is real though. It stands to reason that the people that know how planes can be built safely are the one building planes; otherwise you could get in a situation where "those who know, build planes; those who don't, tell them how to do it".

There is a similar problem with financial regulation; my understanding is that the knowledge transfer between industry and regulation there is solved by the equally problematic "revolving doors", where people alternate between regulating and advising companies (and thus as regulators they don't want to make too many enemies).

ben_w2• 2 years ago

This is another reason why monopolies are bad. If you have a competitor, their employees can regulate you.

Still has a conflict of interest, just a less dangerous one.

Stranger432• 2 years ago

The revolving door problem is mostly people coming back from a stint at a regulator to private employment at an salary that sometimes affect how beneficial their stint as a regulator was to the company hiring them post public service.

If that system was made one way so that people retiring from industry to government were forced to burn all "financial" bridges to the industry they were regulating by forcing them to accept a clause that they can newer go back especially not as a consultant a lot of those issues goes away.

KennyBlanken• 2 years ago

They moved the HQ from Chicago to just outside of DC to be ever closer to the teat that feeds them.

icehawk• 2 years ago

This is largely due to how inexperienced the FAA is with the manufacturing process and thus rely on the industry to self-regulate.

How does the FAA get experience manufacturing planes without manufacturing planes?

I'm not sure the people building the planes are the problem.

I'm pretty sure its the management trying to spend less money to build planes that's the problem

14u2c• 2 years ago

How does the FAA get experience manufacturing planes without manufacturing planes?

By hiring people who have worked in plane manufacturing.

sofixa2• 2 years ago

We can talk about management cutting corners and enforcing a culture all day long, and they should be prosecuted for their negligence... but that doesn't absolve the idiots that forgot to put the bolts in or the other idiots that can't drill a hole properly.

1letterunixname2• 2 years ago

It's called regulatory capture.

lyu07282• 2 years ago

It seems kind of obviously foolish, like sure you can wind-down safety standards for profits, but in the long run making flying wildly recognized as unsafe would surely be so detrimental to profits of the entire industry. Except that they probably did the math and in many circumstances it's not like you can take the high-speed train instead anyhow.

At the beginning of commercial air travel people needed to be convinced by extreme levels of safety standards, we are now in middle of the slow process of transitioning to a point where airplane crashes are as commonplace as car crashes. We see more fatalities and more near-misses in the last few years. It's not just Boeing it's the entire industry, everyone is forced to do the same or you'll be uncompetitive.

helsinkiandrew• 2 years ago

https://archive.ph/VsQDn

TimSchumann• 2 years ago

https://archive.md/vo0rK

ralph84• 2 years ago

The rot runs so much deeper than whichever scapegoats they want to pin it on. The story of Boeing is the story of modern American managerial culture. Excess all around. Excessive executive compensation. Excessive financialization. Excessive outsourcing. Excessive offshoring. Excessive returns to uneconomic activity. Excessive credentialism. Excessive lobbying.

Jack Welch is dead but if they wanted to try someone he’d be a great person to start with.

ilaksh• 2 years ago

I think the only justice would be to see at least one major executive go to prison for several years.

monksy• 2 years ago

why one?

davedx• 2 years ago

Yeah this isn’t just Boeing, it’s the senators who don’t want Boeing jobs to be risked in any serious consequences is my interpretation of how this seems to work

greggsy• 2 years ago

Jack Welch is a great case study in corporate psychopathy, but I feel like the Boeing chapter would address different aspects in the future MBA’s reading list. This is something more along the lines of the Postal Service scandal in the UK.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

Real world incidents, and their incident report, that ahould be mandatory reading for every engineering and management student:

- Chernobyl: great lessons on how to engineer complex systems, the importance of safety culture, the role humans and management olay and how all of this can lead to disaster

- AF 447: lessons on training and HMI design and human factors

- B737 MAX: to be read after Chernobyl, lessons on safety again, mandatory essay to be writen about the parallels between Chernobyl and the B737 MAX

- Bonus reading for the above two points: Fukushima

- B737 MAX 9 and door plugs (once the final repoets are done): lessons on the importance of failure culture and strong quality processes

- Bad Blood, Money Men: Everybody needs a primer in corporate governance, ethics and the red flags that come with it; add the final reporting on the UK postal scandal and FTX

chx3• 2 years ago

It's interesting you would mention Jack Welch because he said:

Shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world.

There is myth about how corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize "shareholder value" and short term corporate profits at the cost of everything else. This is false. No such thing exists in corporate law. While Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is a deplorable decision, there is a rather remarkable sentence in there:

modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-354

tzakrajs• 2 years ago

Shareholder primacy was famously established in the decision of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. in 1919. In Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.'s court opinion, it stated that "there should be no confusion" that "a business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders." Because of this opinion, a precedent was set that managers had to maximize shareholder profit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy

xrd• 2 years ago

I really enjoyed your comment because I have found myself speaking that untruth out loud when I lament the state of corporate ethics.

But, isn't it the case that activist investors aren't really using legal means to ensure that same result; they are using other means anyway? And, the net result is the same?

Sparkyte• 2 years ago

I really hope they find something. Boeing is stupposed to represent America. Products represent the country you belong to and are support to incentivize trading. If we are not making good planes someone will gap fill that.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

Boeing is stupposed to represent America. Products represent the country you belong to and are support to incentivize trading.

I've certainly never heard that. Boeing is a private entity and doesn't represent America; nobody voted for them or chose them, and they don't represent America any more than everyone else.

People voted for their representatives. Giving special status to these companies ends up giving them special power and treatment in order to facilitate their mission, instead of equality before the law.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

From the NY Times coverage:

The company had been asked to produce any documentation it had related to the removal and re-installation of the panel. ... Boeing said it had conducted an extensive search but could not find a record of the information ...

“We likewise have shared with the N.T.S.B. what became our working hypothesis: that the documents required by our processes were not created when the door plug was opened,” the Boeing letter reads. “If that hypothesis is correct, there would be no documentation to produce.”

In the letter, Boeing also said that it had sent the N.T.S.B. all of the names of the individuals on the 737 door team on March 4, two days after it was requested.

How laughably shameless: Offer the lowest-level employees as sacrifices, while burning any connection up the chain to the rest of Boeing. If Trump wins, and Boeing pays what he asks, the government might blame those employees.

Watch for the leaks that begin to smear them - alcohol use, a history of (something bad), etc. A traditional way the powerful destroy the weak is to use far superior media resources to smear them. True or not, ordinary people can't fight a tide of disinformation about them.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

There is no way to excuse behaviour of the people working on the door that day, none.

Stopping at that level won't work there, Boeing tries to spin it that way, but this plane was not the only one woth issues on the door plug. And they already admitted that there was a work around decision loop regarding the necessary documentation work. And FAA audits do not stop at individuals and their behaviour, the explicitely focus on processes and culture (I assume FAA does in principle the same thing EASA does).

But hey Boeing tried to blame the 737 Max crashes on the pilots, so I guess trying the same with shop floor teams tracks.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

There is no way to excuse behaviour of the people working on the door that day, none.

I'll wait for all the facts and their defense before drawing a conclusion (and even then, I really don't know and would trust a jury more). IME, pointing moral outrage at seemingly sure targets turns out to be a sure way to make myself the sinner.

dralley2• 2 years ago

The NTSB asked for those names, this isn't just Boeing offering up scapegoats.

tjpnz• 2 years ago

CEOs often talk about accountability. Would this extend to Dave Calhoun going to prison?

elric• 2 years ago

John Oliver recently did an episode on the Boeing shitstorm. And while I would take anything a comedian says with a large grain of salt, the undercover staff interviews seemed pretty damning. I'm not sure if it's criminal negligence on Boeing's part, but it seems pretty obvious that engineering excellence isn't on the top of their minds.

AnthonyMouse7• 2 years ago

the undercover staff interviews seemed pretty damning

This is the least credible possible evidence, because shows like that have a long history of doing selective editing or purposely taking things out of context.

Sometimes they don't have to because what they're reporting is real, but you can't tell that one way or the other just by watching the segment.

Zetaphor• 2 years ago

I was unaware of these accusations, do you have have any supporting information?

loktarogar3• 2 years ago

"Shows like that" or this show in particular?

hef1989845• 2 years ago

The recorded comments were from the 787 days, and LWTN didn't produce those recordings themselves.

inferiorhuman2• 2 years ago

So how about the Seattle Times?

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...

Rather than fix their airplanes Boeing is trying to discredit the NTSB.

whoknowsidont• 2 years ago

This is the least credible possible evidence

How about the U.S. government opening a criminal inquiry that corroborates what they were reporting?

ulfw• 2 years ago

Those interviews the comedian has shown are a decade old from Al Jazeera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

inferiorhuman2• 2 years ago

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your 'scare' 'quotes'. Qatar also famously got fired by Airbus as a customer and refused to take 787s built in South Carolina. It's not like there are a lot of other options for them.

DANmode• 2 years ago

Aside from other, more direct points: the C-Suite of an airline isn't riding its planes.

nebula88042• 2 years ago

John Oliver is funny until he covers a segment that you have spent a lot of personal time researching then it becomes shocking when you realize that he selectively edits things to craft a certain narrative in the viewers mind. I also saw this with Trevor Noah when Bernie Sanders was running. I was a volunteer tasked with digging up lots of old videos of him for promotional material and I was shocked to see some of the videos I found aired on the Daily Show but deceptively cut to make him look like a grumpy mean old man when if you watched the whole clip it would show the opposite.

rTX5CMRXIfFG• 2 years ago

Yes, that is also true for the other side of the political spectrum. Would you believe it: all humans have biases?

mattmaroon• 2 years ago

With shows like this, people have a case of Gell-Mann amnesia too.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

I think Oliver is funny. His show makes good points and gives good arguments. It should not, however, by itself be the sole basis of one’s opinion on any given topic (not many things should) as many take it to be. It is intelligent and honest but also one-sided and biased.

They are, at least, not generally purposefully misleading in service of their bias, which is why I think people trust them more than a lot of other sources like cable news.

balls187• 2 years ago

In the segment about Boeing they purposefully mislead the audience into believing instead of issuing a software update, the company issued stock buy backs. Looking at the dates if the source articles shows a much different timeline.

renegade-otter• 2 years ago

We live in a timeline where a comedian will actually point to more facts than, say, a "serious" anchor like Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson, who will just blatantly make stuff up. "I am just asking questions".

7952• 2 years ago

There is an honesty in humour.

mcv5• 2 years ago

Because Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are not real reporters, they just play them on TV. They're "angertainers", stoking anger in their viewers as a form of entertainment. The anger doesn't have to be based on facts. Their viewers come to be angry, and they get what they want.

reyleu6• 2 years ago

Engineers stopped running such firms long ago cause they are totally inept at financial engineering. Its the financial engineers who run things, and you can bet right now whatever happens they will get the govt to bail them out. The culture will only change when financial engineering is reined in or part of tech/engineering education. Until then John Oliver will have a never ending supply of such stories from helpless engineers who are so out of control over anything they run to stand up comedians to cry about their problems.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

As a half-engineer myself, I have to say this: people need to be reminded that it was engineers that were at the highest levels, CEO and down, behind Dieselgate and, yes, the issues at Boeing as well. Engineers are not per-se better at business ethics or corporate governance. Greed is universal.

sofixa2• 2 years ago

This is flat out bullshit. The previous Boeing CEO under who the Maxes were rolled out and started crashing, was a career engineer at Boeing. The idiots that failed to add redundancy to a critical system, and hid all about it were also engineers. There is no magic "engineer good manager bad". People can be greedy and stupid and reckless and negligent regardless of their profession.

api• 2 years ago

Only comedians can tell the truth sometimes.

That was the classical role of the jester in some monarchies. They were the only person who could openly criticize the king without retribution (in theory).

pauljurczak3• 2 years ago

Deferred prosecution worked as intended, i.e. no effect. This company is too big to fail. Some mid-level employee will be sacrificed to mollify DOJ, and business as usual will continue. Crapification of the economy continues...

hayst4ck3• 2 years ago

The 737 MAX, stock trading senators, and bribe taking justices are all the same thing for the same reason.

Power is doing something and then saying "what are you going to do about it?"

The supreme court takes bribes and says "what are you going to do about it?" They clearly have the power to take bribes. Nobody appears to be able to do anything about it.

Congresspeople trade stocks of companies they regulate in a gross conflict of interest, then defend their ability to be corrupt as a right. "What are you going to do about it?" Congress clearly has the power to be openly corrupt without consequences.

The 2008 crisis was wall street telling the government that they have many answers to that question. "Too big to fail" was born to capture the idea that there is an entity so powerful there are no reasonable answers to them asking "what are you going to do about it?"

Boeing is too big to fail. Boeing knows that there is no one with the will or fortitude to do anything about putting profit over safety. Investigations to make it look like you're doing something, sure. Canning a few low level employees that you can pin blame on, no problem. Sacrifice a contractor? That's what they're there for. But to hold a CEO or shareholders responsible for gross mismanagement in any kind of meaningful way, threatening all other American oligarchs and hordes of people rich enough to say "what are you going to do about it?" without answer?

Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy, is the past's best answer to Boeing. He deeply understood the forces at play. He had this to say to congress:

  Political and economic power is increasingly being concentrated among a few 
  large corporations and their officers - power they can apply against society, 
  government and individuals. Through their control of vast resources, these 
  large corporations have become, in effect, another branch of government. They 
  often exercise the power of government, but without the checks and balances 
  inherent in our democratic system.

Americans need to start thinking about how to answer someone clearly more powerful saying "what are you going to do about it?" Because every time we say "nothing" those people get that much more powerful.

AnthonyMouse7• 2 years ago

The premise of "too big to fail" is that a thing is depended on by too many other things, innocent people, to allow it to suddenly become rubble. It's an insurance company and its policyholders did nothing wrong. It's a bank and its depositors did nothing wrong. It's Boeing and they're the sole supplier of some critical things.

The "easiest" way to fix this is to bail them out, because then the company itself can carry on fulfilling its obligations and you don't need all the people relying on them to individually apply to get bailed out or otherwise have to rearrange their affairs when the institution is instantly vaporized. But that, as they say, is a moral hazard.

What you really want to do is to destroy them in slow motion. Step one, the existing owners get nothing, they chose their executives poorly and suffer the consequences. Step two, those executives are out too, and the company gets new leadership and a bailout with the condition that the company will soon cease to exist and be sold off for parts, but first it's going carry on operating for a bit to satisfy its obligations to innocent third parties.

piva003• 2 years ago

Instead of bailing them out while keeping it private do the right thing: public money bailed them out, so it's a public company now, nationalise, save the innocents from harm, and sell its parts to recoup the bailout after it's been properly managed through the crisis.

Leaving it to private investors to ride on the public saving a company is just another slap on the face. Yes, I know that the bailouts from 2008 have recouped the public money invested but it's a moral hazard to allow private investors to use this mechanism. Over time private investors will just find loopholes on how to leverage public bailouts for their own gain, they have a massive incentive for gaming it.

roenxi12• 2 years ago

Sounds good but it is still vulnerable - one part of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse that was interesting to me was the money deposited in the bank was appeared to be money controlled by the same people who owned the bank.

IE, I suspect the decision makers behind the bank cared much more about bailing out the depositors of the bank - who were effectively complicit because they weren't shopping around - than the nominal shareholders of the bank. There were apparently specific requirements that startups used SVB if they received funding from certain VCs which suggests something was happening.

hayst4ck3• 2 years ago

What you really want...

This is pure fantasy. What you have described is sets of people not doing what is in their best (short term selfish) interest.

It is not in a politicians best interest to hold Boeing accountable because then Boeing can withdrawal funding and fund their opposition, or more importantly economically harm constituents.

It is not in Boeing exec's interests because by the time Boeing experiences the long term consequences of short term thinking the people responsible will have already made bank, diversified, or invested in competitors. Some other company that wants to cash out their future will probably hire them.

Problems only get solved when those most harmed are the enact-ers of the solution. So if you're thinking about "what you really want to do", then you have to start with how you personally can add your feather onto the scales of justice rather than using hope as a strategy by fantasizing about some powerful responsible government.

javajosh2• 2 years ago

Good post, and the pat response is "vote them out". The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem, and the individual pols that do can't get elected on that issue alone. That is, there's a critical "bundling" problem with modern politics: you have to accept a bundle of 100 positions, and "integrity issues" are usually pretty low. Even worse, a cynical body politic begins to perceive "integrity" as a liability, that someone with conscience and self-restraint is actually LESS capable of "winning" within a corrupt system. You've now allowed your short-term need to win to further degrade the system, which of course becomes a positive feedback loop.

(This bundling problem affects all kinds of products. When you're shopping, you pay attention to price, and everything else is secondary. In a perfect market, you'd price in the forced arbitration clause, or you'd price in the social cost of anti-competitive business practices of the vendor. But it just doesn't happen because the cognitive load is too high.)

I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to the idea that character and integrity mattered most in our pols. Even that system was gamed, its still better than overtly, cynically abandoning society's most laudable values.

metabagel3• 2 years ago

The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem

You’re half right.

metabagel3• 2 years ago

I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to the idea that character and integrity mattered most in our pols.

It still matters if you’re a Democrat. Hillary Clinton was crucified for keeping her official emails on a private server.

We have an unequal system, where one party is held to a high standard, and the standard for the other party is always low enough for them to slither over.

selimthegrim5• 2 years ago

Rickover was no saint himself, see the articles linked here -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 - in the discussion about sama citing him.

korginator• 2 years ago

Boeing's dismal track record has been years in the making and the problems we're seeing were inevitable. However, I'm not holding my breath here hoping for a real change. Boeing is a huge defence contractor with deep connections. I hope I'm mistaken but I doubt we'll see any real systemic change.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

Two things: Boeing doesn't have just to worry about the FAA and US prosecution, depending on the outcome their civil aircraft business might face a ton of EASA scrutiny as well. And that actually is a big deal in the industry.

And public pressure, Boeings reputation is not great at the moment. If that pressure is kept up, it can lead to change as well.

mnau3• 2 years ago

Their defense and space contracts are not going well.

KC-46 tanker replacement was a fixed-price contract and Boeing lost $7 billion on that.

Starliner is a similar story, $1.5 billion down the hole.

EDIT:

T-7A Red Hawk trainer: $1 billion in losses. Air force one VC-25B program: Its losses are now at about $2.4 billion. T-38 Talon trainer, MQ-25...

Yea, it's not going well for them. Other programs are still fine, e.g. F-35, but fixed price contracts are in a dump.

epolanski7• 2 years ago

They also losing gargantuan amounts on the new air force one.

epolanski7• 2 years ago

Eventually they are accountable first and foremost to their shareholders.

And the reputation and incidents is poking a hole in shareholders pockets.

jjk1662• 2 years ago

The US needs Boeing, it doesn't need the current C-suite of Boeing. Cleaning house would be an opportunity for the powers that be to put their guys in charge and make an asset work better for them. Boeing's lobbyists aren't on the chopping block, nor are the shareholders; if change is good for the institution they have no reason to invest substantial resources in resisting it.

justinclift2• 2 years ago

Does this "we can't find the documentation" match what the whistleblower was saying in Jan?

https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-whistleblower-production-...

It doesn't really seem like it?

blueflow2• 2 years ago

I'm sure recording and documenting your work is legally required to get certified for aviation things.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

From what I read, there was seperate decision channel to decide what had to be documebted how at Boeing, which is a big problem in itself.

The whistelblower account actually rracks, depending on which kind of documentation you talk about. You now, the lazy rethoric trick of providing a technically correct answer, what Boeing did, while still lying through obmission of the general point. If so, don't worry, the NTSB and FAA will find out.

epolanski7• 2 years ago

It's a bit complicated as there are things that are mandatory according to some agencies and some that are only recommended but not required.

You would be surprised but the overwhelming majority of maintenance procedures and their bureaucracy is decided by airplane makers and airlines exactly because local authorities have different or no rules at all.

Besides who can know better than Boeing how to maintain a Boeing airplane? Same for other companies.

The issues arise when companies know that some procedure is required to be done and logged but shrug it off for whatever reason. Remains to be seen why.

politelemon• 2 years ago

It could still "match" if it emerges that one of them is lying, and I can't tell which possibility is more terrifying.

the_mitsuhiko3• 2 years ago

Seems to be consistent. The NTSB report already corroborated most of this [1]. What they are trying to locate from my understanding is a record of the door being removed. Which the whistleblower already explained is a process that does not create an entry in the log:

A removal should be written in either case for QA to verify install, but as it turns out, someone (exactly who will be a fun question for investigators) decides that the door only needs to be opened, and no formal Removal is generated in CMES (the reason for which is unclear, and a major process failure). Therefore, in the official build records of the airplane, a pressure seal that cannot be accessed without opening the door (and thereby removing retaining bolts) is documented as being replaced, but the door is never officially opened and thus no QA inspection is required.

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MA063%20P...

mellutussa3• 2 years ago

Handy for Boeing if they can just stick it as a criminal act to some low level employees and case closed.

bojan• 2 years ago

Handy for Boeing executives maybe, but the reputation damage is probably here to stay.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

As I wrote elsewhere, under EASA rules high ranking people at an organization holding design and / or production organisation approvals, are personally responsible, and liable incl. criminal liability, to make sure their organisation works properly. I forget the exact term for this role so.

Not sure about FAA rules, but I assume they are somewhat similar. So at the very least, those individuals, at Boeing and Spirit Aerospace, should be a tad worried now. By the way, senior means VP-levek and above, usually one for the design side (propably less relevant in the door plug question), one on production side (they should be worried), one each for design and production quality (same as above, the production quality oeople should be worried a lot) as well as one for supply chain and other functiobs with less responsibilities (the supply chain people are imolicated in this door plug thing as).

Personally, I don't see how the FAA can just let this slip, their relationship with international partbers and their reputation is already damaged by the 737 MAX, so they have to do something about it.

nocsi• 2 years ago

All the issues are systemic, so it can't be the responsibility of some low-level employees. But it is kind of curious that Boeing suddenly wants to buy Spirit Aerosystems.

hn_throwaway_99• 2 years ago

The curious things is that they divested Spirit Aerosystems in the first place, in a financial engineering move that seemed to serve no business purpose besides a PE pump and dump.

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

Right, but it is nebulous as to who to pin it on. You can't arrest every employee of Boeing. "The buck stops here" won't work, their lawyers are too good. So the answer isn't criminality, the answer is huge fines, in terms of 5% plus of annual revenue and oversight.

parpfish• 2 years ago

sometimes I wonder if org charts are engineered to make sure misdeeds are attributed to diffuse cultural/systemic problems that can’t be prosecuted:

- you can’t blame the low level employees inhabiting the system be their powerless to change it

- the CEOs are hoping that they’ve installed enough layers of middle management that they can claim plausible deniability about any on the ground problems (and ignore that their job is to be the manager-of-managers)

izacus2• 2 years ago

In previous topic, people told me that they would never want to live in a place that expects criminal liability from CEOs and executives in companies.

That's only for petty criminals, murderers and people who can't pay bills.

roenxi12• 2 years ago

Is it more important to dole out punishments or to get the best result? Because the best result isn't going to be from draconian punishments for CEOs.

The strongest irony of what I suspect you are suggesting is that the #1 lesson of high-performance safety cultures is a blameless attitude to accidents. Criminal liabilities for the CEO ... are better than criminal liabilities for lower level employees. But still not the path to the highest levels of safety.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

people told me that they would never want to live in a place

Fine. I'll help them pack their bags, and move furniture into the moving truck.

sandspar5• 2 years ago

People seem to have an easier time forgiving crimes if they're highly abstracted. I'm not sure if this is apocryphal but apparently drone pilots are less likely than other soldiers to feel extreme guilt about killing people. Prince Harry flew a helicopter in action and compared it to a video game, likely a PR recruiting statement but revealing nonetheless. I'm not a soldier so am speaking out of turn and may be completely off base.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

I would love for an impossible outcome from this that MBAs are deemed illegal. Can anyone honestly point to an example of where an MBA has had a positive long term effect by any of their decisions?

ht85• 2 years ago

honestly point to an example

No but I can come up with a KPI that does.

sylware• 2 years ago

I agree with the US administration. Something is fishy in Boeing, or the wrong people are being employed there.

michaelcampbell• 2 years ago

That would be the McDonnell/Douglas merger.

hef1989845• 2 years ago

That would be the starting point, by now it looks like an endemic issue at Boeing.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

A merger done at the behest of the US Govt., if I recall...

hanniabu• 2 years ago

or the wrong people are being employed there

Yeah, the C-suite execs running the show

gigatexal2• 2 years ago

Here’s hoping they pay for their cost-cutting crimes (yeah I know it’s not a crime per se but the efforts are putting people at undue risk, allegedly). And that it’s followed up by a civil case. And that the criminal case causes the board and management to change and the civil case somehow makes workers and victims whole.

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

civil case somehow makes workers and victims whole

If they’re found criminally liable, the most likely outcome is bankruptcy. Victims (airlines) would have a claim. Workers, their unpaid wages. Whatever comes out of bankruptcy will likely need some public support; even then, it’s hard to imagine we don’t see layoffs.

trevoragilbert• 2 years ago

Where do you get “the most likely outcome is bankruptcy” and not say, a $5b fine and something akin to a consent decree? Totally exaggerating the likely consequences.

jonplackett• 2 years ago

It’s quite mad isn’t it. Can you imagine running a company that makes aeroplanes and not going to sleep each night panicking about all the lives you’re ferrying around up in the sky?

It turns out there is a whole company of executives who are so not-worried about it that they’ll continuously cut budgets and decrease the time available to make those planes until multiple planes fall out the sky. And even then are still not really that worried about safety.

junon5• 2 years ago

Yep.

"We don't need to brief anyone on the technicals of our plane, we know better and it's great for stock prices to mislead buyers into thinking it's just a New and Improved model of the same plane flyable in the exact same way!"

It's criminal. They should be criminally charged. I hope this goes through, and I hope prosecutors sweep up all of the floor workers who have already stated they would never fly in the newer planes.

bambax• 2 years ago

The reason they're not worried is because in the worst case, they will get millions of dollars of severance payment, instead of jail time. I'm sure there are sound legal and even economic reasons behind this, but it's still unacceptable and infuriating.

beezlebroxxxxxx2• 2 years ago

In my experience, this is yet more evidence of the quite unethical culture that has come to dominate executives in the last 4-5 decades across many industries. So many of them fail upwards by mindlessly focusing on shareholder value and cost-cutting for short term gains and the long term detriment of products and consumers under their watch. The way that safety and the health of customers and the general public is consistently ignored or thrown under the bus by executives in the name of cost-cutting and shareholder value, often against the explicit recommendations of employees, has become so common that I can't help but think there is something seriously wrong in the "education" (MBAs are more like finishing schools for corporate climbers) and hiring of these executives. We've incentivized ghouls to take over the reins who spend their days a bubbled class that have no need to, and can afford through absurd wealth to not, interact with or see the consequences of their asinine and dangerous decisions.

rapind• 2 years ago

It’s a symptom of decades of gutting regulations.

Next time you hear corp talk about how regulations make x unaffordable, look for the real incentives and benefactors of gutting that regulation.

black6• 2 years ago

It's not just the safety and health of customers and the public that the modern executives don't seem to care about. I work in the CPI and process/employee safety has started to take a back seat to DEI and environmental concerns (to be sure, fair hiring practices and environmental stewardship are great goals to have, but not to the detriment of a safe workplace.)

Stock buybacks take precedence over spending on safety improvements, and reduction in working capital (finished product) to appease the bean counters results in missed sales when the inevitable process upset occurs and there is no surge capacity.

engcoach• 2 years ago

We've incentivized ghouls to take over the reins who spend their days a bubbled class that have no need to, and can afford through absurd wealth to not, interact with or see the consequences of their asinine and dangerous decisions

Nice prose, and an astute point

ajross• 2 years ago

Can you imagine running a company that makes aeroplanes and not going to sleep each night panicking about all the lives you’re ferrying around up in the sky?

I dunno. I think that's a little melodramatic. There are a lot of activities in the world with dangerous failure modes, and flying is pretty far down the list in terms of impact. You could make the same argument about chemical engineers designing pesticide plants, insulin pump manufacturers, hell even folks doing car suspensions are probably responsible for more deaths than Boeing.

People do their jobs, and if the impact is low they'll live with it. Clearly Boeing's leadership thought they were doing OK. And even in hindsight they... kinda were? The MAX is the most dangerous airliner in decades, maybe a half century. But I'd still fly on it.

deepsquirrelnet• 2 years ago

Can you imagine running a company that makes aeroplanes and not going to sleep each night panicking about all the lives you’re ferrying around up in the sky?

For my entire life, the most pervasive theme in executive leadership is that the _only_ responsibility of a company is to make money for its shareholders.

Boeing may reach a point where it has to stop killing passengers, but dead passengers aren’t an issue at all until it creates a major threat to their bottom line.

If you think it shouldn’t take many downed planes before that happens, then given the situation, the real question is why it hasn’t threatened their business enough yet.

yadaeno• 2 years ago

They’re too big to fail. When that’s the case punishing executives is the only way you can have accountability.

The alternative—fining the company into the bankruptcy and letting the courts restructure the company has too many downsides for the shareholders.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

Boeing's stock was cut in half by the MAX crashes, and has not recovered.

ysofunny• 2 years ago

they've offshored all safety corncerns to an insurance corporation

/joking, but I mean.... it doesn't sound as far fetched as it should

actuallyquiteso• 2 years ago

Actually this is how it's supposed to work. Because the focus is on capital the feedback loop that reigns them in happens too late to penalize and bring change. Gov really needs to create a mechanism where the feedback loop happens before lives are affected in critical industries. We will see if they get the point.

P_I_Staker• 2 years ago

Knowing the way the world works, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them literally think "you know we could kill a lot more people, planes are pretty safe"

LASR• 2 years ago

I’m about to fly on a Max-8 airplane in the next 2 hours. I can’t help but be very nervous about the fact that we are still unclear on what exactly happened.

This feels very much like the MCAS situation. They spun their wheels for months after the initial crash. And another tragic crashed happened due to the same issue.

Come on. Someone somewhere at Boeing knows exactly what happened. Even if they don’t want to reveal this, it’s not even clear to me if they now have better QC procedures to catch these kinds of issues.

rainsford6• 2 years ago

Come on. Someone somewhere at Boeing knows exactly what happened.

I don't think that's true for any of the issues, or airline accidents in general. Remember ultimately we're still talking about very rare events that almost always involve a number of different factors lining up in just the right way.

Even the MAX crashes were 2 out of how many thousands of MCAS equipped flights with no issues and those crashes also required other things to go wrong. It's easy to say MCAS was the obvious cause in retrospect, but it's much less clear it should have been easy to predict that outcome before any investigations were done regardless of how much inside knowledge one had.

This is not at all to excuse the causes, but there is a reason crash investigations take time. Demanding immediate explanations is just asking for wrong conclusions to be reached in the name of expediency. In fact taking the time to fully investigate probably produces better accountability in the long run because it can uncover more subtle but serious problems.

wepple2• 2 years ago

Along with the very low actual incident rate, grandparent comment also suggests a certain degree of functional organizational coherence which is often wildly missing at large organizations

If you ask 50 people at Boeing what happened, you may receive 50 very different answers

jweriewj2• 2 years ago

Kayak.com gives you the option to sort and filter plane types! It's now one of their most popular features. Lots of people are happy to filter out 737-MAX planes and pay more for other flights.

xeromal3• 2 years ago

The problem is that your ticket does not guarantee a plane model so it can change at any moment

sandspar5• 2 years ago

I know what you mean. I had a flight recently and didn't look at the plane before I booked it. Then woke up that night, "Shit, is it a Max-8?"

If it makes you feel any better, as with all commercial airplanes, even a Max-8 is far safer than driving your car to get groceries.

* Just saw that your comment is 2 hours old and you said your flight is in 2 hours. Hope you're enjoying your flight! See you when you land!

ponector• 2 years ago

737 is not a plane which can be enjoyed to fly. More like a fully booked intercity bus. Especially Ryanair is cheap on everything.

paledot2• 2 years ago

Comparing the safety of x to driving should be an official fallacy on par with Godwin's Law at this point (which in turn is no longer as firm as it once was). Driving is by far the most dangerous activity that most of us undertake on a regular basis, and is the leading cause of death in Canada among people aged 5-25, and remains in the top three until age 40 (after self-harm and drug use).[1] Switching your commute from a car to a bike or public transit will extend your lifespan, not because it's healthier, but because you're less likely to be killed by another car.

1: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-globa...

cco• 2 years ago

I can’t help but be very nervous about the fact that we are still unclear on what exactly happened.

It seems pretty clear from their initial report (which largely corroborates the whistleblower a few months ago), no?

The bolts were not reinstalled after they were removed to perform a QA fix.

If you mean beyond that, why weren't the bolts reinstalled, nothing too shocking there. The system of record between Boeing and their subcontractors, as well as their procedures to pass off work between companies and crews, is not sufficient to prevent lapses in workmanship like this.

The good news is, all of these door plug bolts are confirmed to be properly installed ;) They just grounded them all to do that. Now...what _other_ bolts are missing, well that's anybody's guess.

skip_region• 2 years ago

Interesting article about the espoused cultural signaling by Boeing's C-Suite: https://www.talentcanary.com/2024/02/unpacking-boeings-cultu...

gottorf• 2 years ago

Interesting, but a simplistic analysis. It could very well be the case that the thing being talked about the most in earnings calls (in this case, production) is being talked about because it's constantly being missed, whereas the stuff that is going well aren't being talked about. Like how the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

amluto2• 2 years ago

This article, along with other articles I’ve seen about this, talk about the door plug being “opened”. This brings to mind an interesting comment from a few days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39624602

You can “open” and “close” a door without documenting it. If you “remove” a piece of an airplane, you document it.

So perhaps a part of Boeing’s error is that they think about “opening” a door plug but they did not design it such that it could be safely “opened” and “closed” without special care.

As I understand it, the door plug is indeed an awkward in-the-middle design in that you can remove four bolts and do something resembling “opening” it without fully removing it. But if you open a door, the plane has better alert the pilots if you try to fly the plane without properly closing the door, and the plug has no such feature.

jeffrallen• 2 years ago

In a properly functioning quality and safety management system, there's no awkward in-the-middle. The "open door plug" procedure is a planned part of the construction, inspection and maintenance of the airplane. And even if there was a doubt, the thing to do in that case is stop and document the doubt, and then document the process of discussion of the doubt, and then document the decision, including whatever change to the quality system may be needed to avoid this doubt arising the next time.

The problem here is not that Boeing does not know how to run both the original quality system and the system to modify it if necessary. The problem is the quality culture that puts "implementing the quality system" above "make line go up" is degraded.

loosescrews• 2 years ago

I think we'd be having a similar discussion if a door opened unexpectedly during flight.

thaumasiotes3• 2 years ago

I think the message of the rest of the comment thread is that a door has two states, "open" and "closed", and the processes around those states know about both of them and handle them appropriately.

Whereas a door plug can't be opened and only has one state, "installed", but the internal processes treated it as if it were a door, generating the documentation that would be appropriate for opening and closing a door (nothing) rather than the documentation that would be appropriate for removing and reinstalling a structural element.

Then, when the door plug wasn't reinstalled correctly, there was no system checking whether it had been "closed", because that concept doesn't apply to door plugs. Whereas an actual door, if it had been left open, would still have generated no relevant documentation, but the plane wouldn't have taken off in that state because the problem would have been obvious.

djmips2• 2 years ago

You can't normally open a regular door in flight as the air pressure prevents it. This is a good feature!

wannacboatmovie• 2 years ago

they did not design it such that it could be safely “opened” and “closed” without special care

Silly take. There is nothing wrong with the design of the door plug, which as I understand it is over twenty years old with no other reported failures. "Special care" is standard procedure in aviation.

By this logic the wings/engines/etc. are all faulty because if you don't install the bolts, they might fall off.

amscanne• 2 years ago

The failure here is that the door was not reinspected after the bolts had been removed to “open” it. A reinspection would be required if had been “removed”, and I’d bet that wings are always inspected for proper construction and installation (because there’s no way to “open” the wings).

I don’t believe the parent comment is saying the design is poor, it’s about the process during assembly and maintenance.

nullstyle• 2 years ago

"Special care" is standard procedure in aviation.

Does not compute

djmips2• 2 years ago

Old, established design does not equal good. You should know that from the software world. It seems obvious now that a door plug design that has the same failsafe at pressure of the actual doors would be a good improvement.

beAbU• 2 years ago

I honestly think the flaw is in the name. It's /not/ a door. It's a temporary hole in the airframe that's used when the interior is installed, and it can be _converted into a door_ if the airline/regulations require additional entry/egress points.

Now they call it a "door plug", and the technician working on it searched the QA SOP document for the right procedures and searched for "door" and "open" and got the SOP for "opening a door", which requires zero documentation after the work is done.

I'l know it's contrived, but it's so stupid that it might just be what happened.

diogenescynic• 2 years ago

Go after the executives and management who made the decisions.

bumby13• 2 years ago

Do you think engineers who design the systems also have a duty to the public and should be held accountable?

derwiki• 2 years ago

That’s an interesting question. The engineering ethics course I was required to take would unequivocally say yes, the engineers should be held accountable. If you, as an engineer, raise the concern, and management overrides you, then what? You could whistleblow and/or quit in protest. But does that leave you jobless? My engineering ethics course didn’t talk about duties to support your family financially.

benhurmarcel• 2 years ago

If that’s the case they should also be paid accordingly

srj• 2 years ago

I knew a team lead for one of Boeing's machinist groups in Seattle. They were a blue collar bunch and not college educated engineers. He wanted to have pride in their work but was constantly frustrated with their management and told me once that he didn't trust Boeing planes.

Boeing didn't like when they went on strike and moved to South Carolina where it was cheaper and there were less union friendly laws.

rainsford6• 2 years ago

In the case in question here, there is no obvious engineering design flaw in the door plug to hold anyone accountable for. To the point you were replying to, it's also not clear there was an obvious management decision that led to the plug being reinstalled improperly.

delfinom4• 2 years ago

But the public has no duty to the engineer.

The SEC has a whistleblower program to ensure whistleblowers are financially well off after basically getting blacklisted when the industry when they report crimes

There are no such protections for engineers and the aerospace industry is very consolidated these days.

aeternum3• 2 years ago

Those responsible will golden-parachute out and will simply be replaced by similar.

jweriewj2• 2 years ago

You know, I don't like to kick a dead horse while it's down. I bet Boeing feels just awful about all of this and they're someday soon going to start doing their best to remedy it. I don't think one or two or three major problems in rapid succession is anything more than bad luck and hey, look at all the good work they've done for their shareholders! We should just trust that they're a good American company and they're going to get better and leave it at that! Besides, the FAA is almost bankrupt and Trump is about to go back into office so why waste our time on things we know aren't going to get fixed?

kstrauser• 2 years ago

I can’t tell if this is genuine or sarcasm. Well done.

geodel• 2 years ago

I guess it all comes down to thinking outsourcing is magic. Get same thing done at 1/4th the cost with virtually no downside. Hopefully C suites get what they deserve or at least get fired.

But at any point do these consultants like at McKinseys, BCG, AT Kerney etc who advise these money saving tactics get what they deserve?

mglz• 2 years ago

We need "leadership" people in companies to aign off on decisions like how engineers need to sign off on designs. That signature needs to make them accountable for future issues.

bumby13• 2 years ago

Ie an engineering equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

doubloon3• 2 years ago

First amendment loophole.

You can't legally tell someone to commit negligent homicide, but if you tell them the engineering process efficiency management program has passed mandatory quality and safety checks by an accredited third party auditor, then the law can't touch you.

Much like computer science, every problem (like how to avoid being charged for homicide) can be solved by layers of indirection.

aeternum3• 2 years ago

This is why regulation is rarely the answer. Corporate lawyers are ultimately more clever and better-paid than the congressional staffers that are writing the laws.

It's also much easier to find a loophole than it is to predict and avoid all loopholes, especially with all the compromise required to pass a law.

_heimdall10• 2 years ago

Its not so much in direction as it is bureaucracy and corruption.

From what I've seen, regulatory agencies and processes are created for a combination of well intended concern for public safety and a power grab. Neither of those are based on indirection so much as ignorance (or hopefulness?) and greed, respectively.

asveikau2• 2 years ago

I don't think a judge or jury is going to buy that.

bumby13• 2 years ago

What happens in the case of Boeing where there’s evidence that the quality checks were not complied with? At least with MCAS, there seems to be evidence they didn’t adhere to their own process requirements.

cscurmudgeon2• 2 years ago

Any evidence outsourcing is the issue?

mnau3• 2 years ago

Whole 787 program that relied on subcontractors. Wiki:

development budget estimated at US$7 billion as Boeing management claimed that they would "require subcontractors to foot the majority of costs"
The accumulated losses for the 787 totaled almost $27 billion (~$32.8 billion in 2022) by May 2015.

chmod7752• 2 years ago

Everyone including Boeing officially and internally since admitted it was a dumb idea, however it's a lot to recap in a HN comment. Maybe someone else will feel like it.

The short version is that it's hard making things fit together and meet your standards when you're dealing with dozens of different suppliers and suppliers of suppliers who aren't necessarily aligned with your goals. The full story is a cautionary tale about letting business school types displace people who know how to build planes. I recommend seeking out one of the many retellings of Boeings struggles since the McDonnell Douglas merger.

Instead of a retelling, I'll point you to the latest chapter: Boeing trying to re-acquire ownership of Spirit AeroSystems. It's a substantial indictment of past policy to do a full reversal in the name of "strengthening safety".

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/business/boeing-spirit-ae...

stevenwoo• 2 years ago

It’s aimed at entertainment but the latest Last Week Tonight covered this and is on YouTube. Hope this links works from my phone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc

dboreham2• 2 years ago

Yes. The door that fell off was part of a subcontracted fuselage assembly. Boeing inspectors found, on delivery, that it was not correctly installed. Apparently they very frequently found defects like this in delivered 737 fuselages. Rather than do something sensible such as shut down the fuselage plant until it could make defect-free assemblies, instead Boeing adopted a continuous re-work and re-inspect flow on the delivery side of the contracting relationship, with of course the cost borne by the subcontractor. This meant that Boeing staff essentially did the equivalent of filing bugs in the subcontractor's repo, but accepted the subcontractor's CI being green as proof the bug was fixed. Which in this case it was not.

kqr2• 2 years ago

Obligatory internal Boeing critique on the limits of outsourcing in 2001 : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/69746-hart-smith-on-...

gcanyon• 2 years ago

I hate how far Boeing has fallen. The merger with McDonnell Douglas seems to have been a disaster of leadership. I'm sure that's not the only factor, but multiple articles I've read have pointed to that as the turning point.

For anyone interested in a brief summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URoVKPVDKPU

polynomial2• 2 years ago

TBF that was 27 years ago.

asveikau2• 2 years ago

They can probably coast on prior successes for a long time. Not to mention many airline fleets will be older stock, the replacement schedules on those things can be long. A systemic deterioration might take decades until people notice.

metabagel3• 2 years ago

It takes a long time to destroy a corporate culture which was built over the better part of a century.

Jaepa• 2 years ago

This also isn’t the first issue. Ignoring the stock maximization issues & issues like the Dreamliner mess.

This reason this is real real bad was because the 737 Max. The C suite said it was real come to Jesus moment. Now we’re finding out not only is the culture not fixed, but it has such mismanagement that there’s no effective QA.

_heimdall10• 2 years ago

Inquiries won't help if they stop at Boeing, or contractors Boeing used. The problem here is much more fundamental to the regulatory bodies overseeing the airline industry and the dependence on a few companies that have become too big for the government to let fail.

As long as our government is beholden to large corporations, either through lobbying or the "too big to fail" card, we functionally have a fascist state where industry took over our government. I'm not saying we're all the way there by any means, but that's inevitable if we keep bandaiding problems without getting to the root cause.

xwolfi• 2 years ago

But why is Airbus so much better ?

_heimdall10• 2 years ago

I don't known nearly as much about thisyhud specifically, but I've seen compelling arguments for how the Boeing merger really damaged leadership and the company as a whole. I can't vouch for that personally, but it was convincing to me.

Moreover though, if my original argument is right, the failing system of regulation will fail slowly (presumably then all at once). The FAA and other bodies involved in the air industry may be broken, but it still takes a kick to push a company over the edge. A company like Airbus could continue to operate extremely well despite the broken system, though I'd argue with enough time they will be hit by it as well.

MilStdJunkie2• 2 years ago

Germans.

OK, seriously though, when it comes to outsourcing, it's because Airbus/CASA rigorously defined systems interfaces and all sorts of other stuff before outsourcing design. I've been a part of the supplier chain there, and it's intense, but it means your part's got a good shot of slotting in the first time.

787 - and a whole truckload of BDS work - it's less "strict systems interface" and more "what is systems interface". You can get decades pass where the part still doesn't fit.

dotnet002• 2 years ago

They've probably just managed to avoid gaining such an extreme cost cutting culture that Boeing management is believed to have. Probably also less openly corrupt politicians over in Europe. Congress-critters don't even really make an effort to hide that they're at Boeing's beck and call.

cpursley• 2 years ago

Fewer MBAs in Europe.

eyelidlessness• 2 years ago

I’ll go one further: this is a compelling argument for, at least, direct government participation in markets we consider crucial to a functioning society.

_heimdall10• 2 years ago

This gets to the core of what modern governments are even trying to do. At least in the US, the concept of Executive branch agencies creating and enforcing regulations, and therefore manipulating markets, is fairly new.

I would personally want to see all of those agencies disbanded and regulations removed in favor of trusting markets and consumers to deal with problems. If nothing else, government intervention should be an extremely rare occurrence rather than business as usual.

With that said, there are certainly benefits of those agencies that would be lost. Its just my opinion that the good doesn't outweigh the bad, and that a system with fundamental issues and misaligned incentives should be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The short term damage caused would always be less than the long term damage of continuing to hold them together with duct tape and bubble gum.

peteradio3• 2 years ago

In what some call a frightening abuse of executive power the FAA and Dept of Justice have combined powers in a "Power Rangers type thing" and issued a sweeping judgement against all holders of an MBA. A prepared statement released by the lead investigators from the Dept of Justice said "Those who can't do teach and those who can't do either become either an accountant or an MBA or probably both. At some point the gangrenous limb must be swiftly cleaved and that is our intent here today."

jonwachob91• 2 years ago

>> Inquiries won't help if they stop at Boeing, or contractors Boeing used.

The investigation hasn't stopped at Boeing nor Boeing contractors.

It's not covered in the NYT article linked in this HN topic, but the Wall Street Journal article that was first to report the Justice Department investigation says the NTSB is "seeking to interview Federal Aviation Administration Officials in the Seattle area who oversee Boeing's manufacturing".[0]

Sounds like an initial step towards identifying any fault that lies with the FAA and FAA oversight.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/justice-department-ope...

_heimdall10• 2 years ago

seeking to interview Federal Aviation Administration Officials in the Seattle area who oversee Boeing's manufacturing

That could mean anything at the moment, though hopefully its a good sign.

It wouldn't be suprising for the NTSB or Justice Department to want testimony from the FAA related to a case against Boeing. It will be very surprising in my opinion if the interviews lead to any question of the FAA itself. Importantly, if the FAA was in any way a subject of the investigation they likely wouldn't be seeking interviews as that generally isn't a term used for potential defendants.

userabchn• 2 years ago

I wonder whether the recent release of the Comac C919 [1] has anything to do with it - either through pushing Boeing to cut corners to compete on cost, or through malicious amplification of bad news stories involving Boeing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919

nneonneo• 2 years ago

Boeing screwed up here and let a door fall out of a flying plane. They don’t need anyone amplifying their bad news; it’s going to come to them.

Boeing and its subcontractors apparently didn’t even keep appropriate records of the maintenance that was performed here. That’s a huge oversight and probably a big part in why they’re being criminally investigated.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

I'd be careful about over-regulation and liabilities (especially criminal liability). Such has completely crushed the general aviation business. This is why Cessnas flying today are all from the 1960s. Their engines require leaded gas, which is a big problem, but regulation and liability has made it impractical to develop a modern engine.

I.e. not only is innovation crushed by regulation, liability also prevents any new designs, because new designs always carry an element of risk.

Criminal liabilities mean people will do their best to deny it and cover it up, rather than fix it. The incredible safety of aviation today is not the result of punishing people who make mistakes.

bdcravens3• 2 years ago

Criminal liabilities mean people will do their best to deny it and cover it up, rather than fix it.

Feels like this has been the status quo for Boeing for a few years regarding the 737 MAX. Actions with real teeth are required to incentive change.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

You can hang people if you like, but you won't like the result. The aviation industry has not gotten as safe as it is today by whipping, hanging, or jailing people.

Even fixing a mistake is an implicit admission of guilt, and so people will not fix them. They will cover up and deny instead.

chronofar• 2 years ago

but regulation and liability has made it impractical to develop a modern engine.

Can you go into more detail about this? What regulation/liability specifically has stifled modern engine development? And is the answer deregulation? Or more carefully applied regulation of a different sort?

I think specifics are critically important for this kind of thing. General rhetoric is often “too much regulation” or “not enough regulation,” but what we usually want is “the correct regulation to align incentives,” which is often different for different cases.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

I've seen discussions of the engine, about the regulatory barriers to designing new piston engines for Cessnas so the leaded gas can be dispensed with. Businesses don't want anything to do with changing anything at all about those airplanes.

matchagaucho• 2 years ago

The liability, in this case, is not about innovation, but about cost-reduction and outsourcing to a vendor with (allegedly) no audit and compliance controls.

wunderland• 2 years ago

This is quite an outlandish take. The safety of the aviation industry is by and large directly due to strict safety regulations, many of which Boeing pioneered before being taken over and financialized into the mess it is today.

New entrants in this industry need a ton of capital, made only worse by the monopoly suppliers in every single airframe sector. If anything, there needs to be more regulation to breakup these behemoths (or, prevent mergers like McDonnell Douglas and Boeing) in the first place.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

The safety of the aviation industry is by and large directly due to strict safety regulations, many of which Boeing pioneered

Isn't that rather self-contradictory? Having an unsafe airplane is bad for business. It put Lockheed out of the airliner business, for example (Elektra). Also DeHaviland (Comet).

standardly• 2 years ago

"Don't tread on me!" replied the OP, as he designed an unsafe airplane and expected market forces to sort it out after people died.

extraduder_ire• 2 years ago

Is this much different outside of the US, or are there similar levels of red-tape around developing engines/planes for GA there too?

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

Good question. I don't know, except that other countries often just rubber-stamp FAA regulations and adopt them.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

The idea that people shouldn't be charged with crimes because that makes them cover up crimes is pretty hard to grok.

We should also be careful of underregulation. Most of all, we should be careful of reflexive, reactionary, and/or partisan reasoning and decision-making. Part of that is this hypersenstive allergy to regulation that has people sneezing and coughing every time the idea is within a mile of them. That's arguably a reason for the Boeing situation.

Business leaders always clamor for less regulation because they have big egos (they cannot be constrained! also they must know more than the regulator), because sometimes there is a negative impact on their quarterly revenue, and because many have embraced an ideology. When things go to heck, then it would have been better to be regulated more - a situation Boeing is in now, and that financial markets seem to find themselves in every decade or so.

(Regulation also helps create a marketplace where you can focus on making better planes, not taking risks with people's lives to keep up with the other crazy competitors.)

rainsford6• 2 years ago

The idea that people shouldn't be charged with crimes because that makes them cover up crimes is pretty hard to grok.

I think the point is more about what we treat as crimes. My assumption is that the grandparent post is a reaction to the number of people in the comments here demanding criminal liability for the door plug issue, especially for Boeing executives, despite a notable lack of evidence of criminal actions (or actions that should be criminal) by Boeing executives or anyone else for that matter.

Charging people with crimes when there is evidence they've committed crimes seems like fair game, but the assumption that a crime was involved just because something bad happened seems like a bad approach to aviation safety. Maybe that's where this case will end up, but calls for it now seem wildly premature and likely to have the chilling effect the grandparent poster is talking about.

WalterBright11• 2 years ago

they must know more than the regulator

Back when I worked on the 757 stab trim gearbox, I certainly knew far more about it than the regulators. There was just no way they knew every detail of it like I did. I also did all the math on it, and I was never questioned about it by the regulators. They never asked me a single question about any of it.

Business leaders always clamor for less regulation because they have big egos

They often clamor for more regulation for the purpose of making it very difficult for anyone to compete with them.

Regulation also helps create a marketplace where you can focus on making better planes, not taking risks with people's lives to keep up with the other crazy competitors

That's a self-contradictory statement. Making better planes is how you compete successfully.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

In cases where archive.ph is blocked:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240309232411if_/https://www.ny...

1letterunixname2• 2 years ago

This is accountability theater because of institutional US government support and dependency on Boeing as a strategic defense contractor for other divisions. After MCAS, they know they can't be touched.

code51• 2 years ago

Here's a wild guess: Through SpaceX design experience (rip apart, challenge all assumptions and rebuild better), Elon Musk (Falcon Aviation) will try to build a far more efficient and safe alternative to existing 737s.

Falcon Aviation got hold of various aircraft, which I think they'll just reverse-engineer and throw out what's not working. It's like taking pretrained weights from an established LLM: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-spacex-bought-a-b...

With Trump coming to power, Boeing's tarnished credibility will be a major issue to address. I'm expecting US government will incentivize this process. Boeing will lose good engineers out to this fresh competition.

gabesullice• 2 years ago

I love me some wild speculation, but it seems more likely that SpaceX needed a more capable jet to ferry large, critical parts from Hawthorne to Brownsville. Otherwise they'd need to go on a trailer.

Now for my own wild speculation: SpaceX has shown renders of using Starship to do point to point passenger travel. And Elon appears to fixate on goals like that. My impression is that he would view reverse-engineering a passenger plane as a distraction for the company.

brevitea• 2 years ago

Will the CEO be held liable? Will their yearly multi-million dollar bonuses be taken?

U.S. is said to open criminal inquiry into Boeing

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