10 ms·

Former Boeing Engineers Say Relentless Cost-Cutting Sacrificed Safety

dillonmckay 7y ago
Why do the simulators cost $15 million?
- throw20102010 7y ago
  The simulators are certified training devices, which means that you can do part of your legally required training in them (and not have to fly an actual jet). To be certified as a training device it has to be accredited to act similar to the real thing. That accreditation costs money. That's not to say it couldn't be done cheaper, but until someone does $15 million is what the market will bear. The other option is gassing up a real jet for training.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    But if the cost is discouraging the decision of what is legally required training, that is an issue. Also, who accredits the simulator? The company that built it?
    - throw20102010 7y ago
      Following up here. For a new jet (new type certificate), there is a minimum amount of required flying to get rated- in this case, you can put many pilots through a $15 million simulator and not put any wear and tear on your shiny new jets. When the option is sim vs real flight, the cheapest option is the sim. But $15 million is still expensive. A major selling point (possibly the biggest selling point) of the MAX jets was that Boeing convinced the FAA that they were similar to old 737s and did not need a new type certificate. That meant for the many pilots already certified to fly the 737 they would not need to do any flight training to transition. All those currently certified 737 pilots could fly the new jets just by reading a manual on an iPad for an hour. That is a huge savings in training cost even compared to powering up a simulator. The simulators still exist because new pilots still need to get certified need to log flight time- the iPad app is not good enough for them. Regarding simulator accreditation, I believe Boeing does that themselves. They hand the FAA a stack of documents claiming that they tested the simulator with the same flight profile as a real jet and it handled the same as the real thing. The FAA basically says, "as long as you're not lying about running the test then the simulator is acceptable for training." This is how the FAA handles most certification- they do not do their own testing, they just accept manufacturer test results and documentation. As long as the documentation claims to meet standards then it's all gravy. In general this system works, because if someone crashes your plane and a whistleblower says that you did not actually perform the correct test procedures then you are in hot water.
- bdavis__ 7y ago
  they cost more than that ! (and note they run the same code as the aircraft, in most cases)
cameronbrown 7y ago
Our industry needs to take the 'Engineer' part of Software Engineering a lot more seriously. A professional certification to use the title is looking more and more important with each incident like this, otherwise developers have no teeth to push back when flaws like this are brushed aside by management to save money/reduce costs/etc.. Cyber security, data ethics,.. many things in programming could benefit from certification, and having to legally sign off on your own work.
- jhayward 7y ago
  MCAS was designed by aeronautical engineers, not software engineers. The exact sensors, function, and responses were all specified by aero engineers. The software, as far as we know, was produced using acceptable software engineering processes and functioned exactly as designed. What, exactly, do you think a PE cert for a software engineer would have done here? Do you think the software people should have refused what the aero people certified as safe?
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Require signing off on something as an Engineer that they understand the scope for which this unit is being utilized and that it is reasonably safe according to the best practices known at the time and their own full and complete understanding of the context. It gives legal teeth for them to say; "No, this has not yet been proven to be safe, I cannot sign on to that". However at the same time a union or guild is required so that management doesn't penalize for being a moral engineer versus a rubber-stamp engineer.
    - jhayward 7y ago
      Are you suggesting that these hypothetical software engineers would substitute their opinion for the expertise of domain expert engineers? Or would a software engineer doing flight control software have to first be certified as an aero engineer before touching the keyboard? (Aero engineers do not use the PE system, btw). How about people doing software for medical systems? Would they have to go to med school, do a residency, and pass medical boards before coding? How would this work? Because refusing to accept specifications from domain experts and substituting your own is a great way to attach personal liability to yourself for something which you are not trained as an a reasonably knowledgeable lay person, much less an expert. I doubt any software engineer could obtain professional liability insurance if that was the practice.
monksy 7y ago
This is exactly what Agile succeeds in. This story is going to be an 8 point story? But Jim said he could get it done in 2. Have a safety concern? The product owner doesn't think it's a priority.
- brianwawok 7y ago
  Does Boeing use agile when deciding things like safety features on planes? if not, is this relevant to the story?
  - monksy 7y ago
    Do they? I have no idea. I'm not an employee of Boeing. Have I seen agile/scrum used to cut corners on and dismiss engineering concerns? Absolutely.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  What you describe sounds like Scrum done very poorly, not "Agile" in general. >This story is going to be an 8 point story? But Jim said he could get it done in 2 If you treat individual ticket SP values as measures of time, you've already completely lost the point of everything.
sara7262 7y ago
Now you can judge who is lying or who is telling the truth Just watch this and save yourself from others https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/03/detect-lie1.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/03/detect-lie1.html Love between lion and man See in video how much they are taking care of each others http://bit.ly/2Yh5oBe http://bit.ly/2Yh5oBe Very funny pets video of 2019 Just watch I am sure you can't control your laugh http://bit.ly/2E1UsQs http://bit.ly/2E1UsQs Love of elephant With human,see this video http://bit.ly/2Jg49Pp http://bit.ly/2Jg49Pp That's sho cute video Dogs are dancing part2 Watch this on link below http://bit.ly/2W2DZpi http://bit.ly/2W2DZpi
throwvatars 7y ago
This seems like another case to stop H1B visa system. We are sacrificing quality over Q4 earnings by outsourcing skilled jobs to unskilled cheap body shops.
- dang 7y ago
  "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  That has more to do with outsourcing and haphazard disintegration of product requirements than H1B's.
- olliej 7y ago
  Uh what? H1-B’s are literally the opposite of outsourcing. Yes there were outsourcing companies that abused the system (harming legitimate companies), but if you think outsourcing companies are going to magically start recruiting top of the barrel engineers you are sorely mistaken.
phkahler 7y ago
TFA mentions shareholder value. How exactly do unsafe planes help shareholder value?
- mikeash 7y ago
  People are bad at understanding risk. Tell someone that this change will save the company enough money to bump the share price by $2, but there's a one-in-a-million chance per flight that it will cause a crash that will destroy the company instead. Do you go for it? A lot of people will hear "one in a million" as "basically impossible" and say it sounds great. They'll probably rationalize it further by deciding that you're being paranoid about the risks. And then a while later you have a few hundred dead people and a company with a shattered reputation.
  - formercoder 7y ago
    From a completely technical perspective, one can understand the cost of this risk with real option valuation techniques. However I’d say this is an inappropriate method when so many lives are at stake.
  - challenger22 7y ago
    And to further complicate it, the smaller a risk, the worse we are at estimating it. Investigations after the Challenger Disaster revealed that engineers at NASA thought the space shuttle had a 1/100 failure rate per mission, while managers thought the shuttle had a 1/10,000 failure rate.
- throwaway55554 7y ago
  Everything today is about shareholder value. Nobody, but nobody gives a flying frog's fat fucking ass about the end user/customer/employee/etc any more.
  - umvi 7y ago
    Well, don't support public companies then if at all possible. Public companies = greedy shareholders
mashpotato 7y ago
Just throwing out there, the CFO is a gay gentleman with several "sugar babies". He hosts coke filled wild parties at his penthouse in San Jose. Might give an insight to the character of the person probably demanding all the cost cuts.
mekane8 7y ago
Man Boeing sounds like such a disgusting place to work. Granted, I'm sure many, many large publicly-traded companies are like this. But the way the article lays it out these executive initiatives reminds me of mobster movies where they move in and milk an honest citizen's store for all it's worth. That profits and executive bonuses should take precedence over the safety of human lives is horrible. I'm curious to hear more about why the unions formed, since it sounds like there was a very contentious relationship there.

Why do the simulators cost $15 million?

throw20102010 7y ago
The simulators are certified training devices, which means that you can do part of your legally required training in them (and not have to fly an actual jet). To be certified as a training device it has to be accredited to act similar to the real thing. That accreditation costs money. That's not to say it couldn't be done cheaper, but until someone does $15 million is what the market will bear. The other option is gassing up a real jet for training.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  But if the cost is discouraging the decision of what is legally required training, that is an issue. Also, who accredits the simulator? The company that built it?
  - throw20102010 7y ago
    Following up here. For a new jet (new type certificate), there is a minimum amount of required flying to get rated- in this case, you can put many pilots through a $15 million simulator and not put any wear and tear on your shiny new jets. When the option is sim vs real flight, the cheapest option is the sim. But $15 million is still expensive. A major selling point (possibly the biggest selling point) of the MAX jets was that Boeing convinced the FAA that they were similar to old 737s and did not need a new type certificate. That meant for the many pilots already certified to fly the 737 they would not need to do any flight training to transition. All those currently certified 737 pilots could fly the new jets just by reading a manual on an iPad for an hour. That is a huge savings in training cost even compared to powering up a simulator. The simulators still exist because new pilots still need to get certified need to log flight time- the iPad app is not good enough for them. Regarding simulator accreditation, I believe Boeing does that themselves. They hand the FAA a stack of documents claiming that they tested the simulator with the same flight profile as a real jet and it handled the same as the real thing. The FAA basically says, "as long as you're not lying about running the test then the simulator is acceptable for training." This is how the FAA handles most certification- they do not do their own testing, they just accept manufacturer test results and documentation. As long as the documentation claims to meet standards then it's all gravy. In general this system works, because if someone crashes your plane and a whistleblower says that you did not actually perform the correct test procedures then you are in hot water.
bdavis__ 7y ago
they cost more than that ! (and note they run the same code as the aircraft, in most cases)

Our industry needs to take the 'Engineer' part of Software Engineering a lot more seriously. A professional certification to use the title is looking more and more important with each incident like this, otherwise developers have no teeth to push back when flaws like this are brushed aside by management to save money/reduce costs/etc.. Cyber security, data ethics,.. many things in programming could benefit from certification, and having to legally sign off on your own work.

jhayward 7y ago
MCAS was designed by aeronautical engineers, not software engineers. The exact sensors, function, and responses were all specified by aero engineers. The software, as far as we know, was produced using acceptable software engineering processes and functioned exactly as designed. What, exactly, do you think a PE cert for a software engineer would have done here? Do you think the software people should have refused what the aero people certified as safe?
- mjevans 7y ago
  Require signing off on something as an Engineer that they understand the scope for which this unit is being utilized and that it is reasonably safe according to the best practices known at the time and their own full and complete understanding of the context. It gives legal teeth for them to say; "No, this has not yet been proven to be safe, I cannot sign on to that". However at the same time a union or guild is required so that management doesn't penalize for being a moral engineer versus a rubber-stamp engineer.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    Are you suggesting that these hypothetical software engineers would substitute their opinion for the expertise of domain expert engineers? Or would a software engineer doing flight control software have to first be certified as an aero engineer before touching the keyboard? (Aero engineers do not use the PE system, btw). How about people doing software for medical systems? Would they have to go to med school, do a residency, and pass medical boards before coding? How would this work? Because refusing to accept specifications from domain experts and substituting your own is a great way to attach personal liability to yourself for something which you are not trained as an a reasonably knowledgeable lay person, much less an expert. I doubt any software engineer could obtain professional liability insurance if that was the practice.

monksy 7y ago

This is exactly what Agile succeeds in. This story is going to be an 8 point story? But Jim said he could get it done in 2. Have a safety concern? The product owner doesn't think it's a priority.

brianwawok 7y ago
Does Boeing use agile when deciding things like safety features on planes? if not, is this relevant to the story?
- monksy 7y ago
  Do they? I have no idea. I'm not an employee of Boeing. Have I seen agile/scrum used to cut corners on and dismiss engineering concerns? Absolutely.
Benjammer 7y ago
What you describe sounds like Scrum done very poorly, not "Agile" in general. >This story is going to be an 8 point story? But Jim said he could get it done in 2 If you treat individual ticket SP values as measures of time, you've already completely lost the point of everything.

sara7262 7y ago

Now you can judge who is lying or who is telling the truth Just watch this and save yourself from others https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/03/detect-lie1.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/03/detect-lie1.html Love between lion and man See in video how much they are taking care of each others http://bit.ly/2Yh5oBe http://bit.ly/2Yh5oBe Very funny pets video of 2019 Just watch I am sure you can't control your laugh http://bit.ly/2E1UsQs http://bit.ly/2E1UsQs Love of elephant With human,see this video http://bit.ly/2Jg49Pp http://bit.ly/2Jg49Pp That's sho cute video Dogs are dancing part2 Watch this on link below http://bit.ly/2W2DZpi http://bit.ly/2W2DZpi

throwvatars 7y ago

This seems like another case to stop H1B visa system. We are sacrificing quality over Q4 earnings by outsourcing skilled jobs to unskilled cheap body shops.

dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
SamReidHughes 7y ago
That has more to do with outsourcing and haphazard disintegration of product requirements than H1B's.
olliej 7y ago
Uh what? H1-B’s are literally the opposite of outsourcing. Yes there were outsourcing companies that abused the system (harming legitimate companies), but if you think outsourcing companies are going to magically start recruiting top of the barrel engineers you are sorely mistaken.

phkahler 7y ago

TFA mentions shareholder value. How exactly do unsafe planes help shareholder value?

mikeash 7y ago
People are bad at understanding risk. Tell someone that this change will save the company enough money to bump the share price by $2, but there's a one-in-a-million chance per flight that it will cause a crash that will destroy the company instead. Do you go for it? A lot of people will hear "one in a million" as "basically impossible" and say it sounds great. They'll probably rationalize it further by deciding that you're being paranoid about the risks. And then a while later you have a few hundred dead people and a company with a shattered reputation.
- formercoder 7y ago
  From a completely technical perspective, one can understand the cost of this risk with real option valuation techniques. However I’d say this is an inappropriate method when so many lives are at stake.
- challenger22 7y ago
  And to further complicate it, the smaller a risk, the worse we are at estimating it. Investigations after the Challenger Disaster revealed that engineers at NASA thought the space shuttle had a 1/100 failure rate per mission, while managers thought the shuttle had a 1/10,000 failure rate.
throwaway55554 7y ago
Everything today is about shareholder value. Nobody, but nobody gives a flying frog's fat fucking ass about the end user/customer/employee/etc any more.
- umvi 7y ago
  Well, don't support public companies then if at all possible. Public companies = greedy shareholders

mashpotato 7y ago

Just throwing out there, the CFO is a gay gentleman with several "sugar babies". He hosts coke filled wild parties at his penthouse in San Jose. Might give an insight to the character of the person probably demanding all the cost cuts.

mekane8 7y ago

Man Boeing sounds like such a disgusting place to work. Granted, I'm sure many, many large publicly-traded companies are like this. But the way the article lays it out these executive initiatives reminds me of mobster movies where they move in and milk an honest citizen's store for all it's worth. That profits and executive bonuses should take precedence over the safety of human lives is horrible. I'm curious to hear more about why the unions formed, since it sounds like there was a very contentious relationship there.