5 ms·

I know it's unlikely cause, America, but I'd like to see some of these executives tried for criminal negligence. They'll most likely just face civil suits and m

I know it's unlikely cause, America, but I'd like to see some of these executives tried for criminal negligence. They'll most likely just face civil suits and make settlements with passengers/pilots families ... which honestly isn't enough. Executives need to know fucking up this bad can lean to prison time.

markdown 7y ago
You'd have to cause heavy losses (in money or lives) to the rich and powerful to see the executives get prison time (see Bernie Madoff). Some brown people on the other side of the world dying doesn't quite cut it.
my_username_is_ 7y ago
Could they potentially face jail time in Ethiopia or Indonesia (where the doomed flights flew from, and the airlines are based)? I'm sure there would be quite the fight over extradition, but it would certainly send the message that you can't escape your negligence because of an eye to corporate profit on a global scale.
- throw20102010 7y ago
  There would not be a fight over extradition, at least as long as the executives stay in the USA. The USA does not have an extradition treaty with either Ethiopia or Indonesia, and the USA won't even consider extradition if they are convicted of a crime that doesn't exist in the USA.
  - ghayes 7y ago
    Doesn’t criminal negligence exist in the US, along with a number of other statutes that could apply? Not to say they would face trial here if the events occurred here, but there are laws that would apply given sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
    - throw20102010 7y ago
      First, I am not a lawyer. Yes, negligence can be tried as a criminal act, but there's no way this situation would pass the Justice Department's sniff test. Any negligence that would have happened almost certainly happened on US soil. Even though foreign governments are free to convict however they like, if the act happened on US soil and the US doesn't find you guilty of a crime, then there is no way they are handing you over. If in the unlikely case an executive is found guilty of a crime in the USA they would serve out their sentence in the USA first before extradition is considered. Even then, we'd be real reluctant to hand them over. What I think is more likely to happen (but still unlikely) is that Boeing is penalized through corporate liability. The aggregation of the executives' actions create a responsibility for Boeing, although no single person's actions meet any criminal action. In that case the USA would fine Boeing or punish it in some other way, but I don't think that money is going to Ethiopia or Indonesia. Lastly, since we don't have extradition agreements with either of those countries these arguments would probably not even come up, as we'd tell their embassy to go pound sand- we're not handing over American citizens until you reciprocate with us, prove that your courts are not kangaroo courts, and sign an extradition agreement. And there's no way we're signing one- you think the Trump administration is going to sign an extradition agreement with either of those countries? No, these guys are going to skate. Some references, they probably don't hit everything but they are a good start: https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-612-role-department-state-foreign-extradition-requests https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-612-role... https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-603-determination-extraditability https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-603-dete... https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/extradition.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/extradition....
- bitexploder 7y ago
  It could certainly complicate their lives, but I doubt we would ever extradite them.
  - delinka 7y ago
    Extradition not required. Start threatening their business in these countries. They could try something like "no Boeing aircraft in our airspace" while they refuse to cooperate. Get their local allies on board with a similar ban, and then maybe the Boeing board would hand them over willingly. That's quite the hypothetical, and I don't advocate it. But they certainly don't have to be limited by extradition.
    - ukulele 7y ago
      > maybe the Boeing board would hand them over willingly This is not something the board can do
      - delinka 7y ago
        Sure they can. They can physically make it happen. Put money in the right hands and it happens. Morally, ethically, legally questionable. But certainly not impossible. I'm sure they'd just fire the executive(s) in question first. Lots cleaner and maybe cheaper depending on the golden parachute in the executive's back pocket.
superbaconman 7y ago
But why is everyone blaming Boeing? They were working on the issue, and I wouldn't want to rush a software patch on plane either. The pilots clearly thought it was an issue, by why are they talking to Boeing? Shouldn't they be talking with the Carrier? I mean if anyone is to blame for loss of life surely it's the carriers?
- c0nfused 7y ago
  Everyone is blaming boeing because every time you think you learned the last possible either dumb or reckless thing they did with the 737 max there is another dumber more reckless thing. Every single rock you look under there is more of this crap. Let's recertify our jet instead of doing a new one, shorten time to market. New engines don't fit, ruin the handling of the aircraft. Can't recert that. Try to fix aircraft handling in software. Designed flawed system to hide this from pilots and get regulatory apptoval. Under testing discover that system as submitted to regulators does not work well enough in flight. Update to allow to run repeatedly instead of once as well as increasing movement ranger per cycle. Do not tell regulators. Ship aircraft with 1 hour iPad video intro for pilots. Do not mention this system. Discover that the indicator in the cockpit for sensor failure for the system only works if you have optional HUD upgrades. Sit on this data. Do not patch until your aircraft is grounded. Reassign the guys who are supposed to be doing safety oversight for you if they ask for more safety testing.
  - ReGenGen 7y ago
    There is no evidence (yet) the MAX engines placement "ruin the handling of the aircraft". That's still speculation. Clearly it handles different from other 737 type aircraft which would require a different pilot type certification, which is a big deal and a huge competitive disadvantage vs a320neo.
    - Osiris 7y ago
      What? The whole purpose of MCAS was to address the tendency for the aircraft to pick up under throttle because the engineers are placed more forward on the wings causing a change in lift
fromthestart 7y ago
Serious question: how would you go about determining who is at fault in such a situation?
- rectang 7y ago
  Very difficult, just as it would be in any large organization. Facilitation of plausible deniability is a principle design requirement for company structure. Worse, because of the corporate shield, any malefactors get to keep their ill-gotten gains. (Wells Fargo's execs, even after clawbacks, wound up tens of millions of dollars ahead.) There's no serious deterrent -- the system encourages wrongdoing at the individual level, the perpetuation of entities where wrongdoing occurs, and the creation of new entities where wrongdoing will commence. Prediction: everyone at Boeing will come in for a safe landing after a bit of turbulence.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Not sure. Every single design change goes through well documented review processes in Aerospace. The bigger the change the higher the up the hierarchy it goes. The definitely is a paper trail here. If someone is willing to investigate. Agree with rest, organized deniability is pretty much how large orgs are set up.
- rhizome 7y ago
  Start with the people whose signatures exist on paper, or however the approval chain works in this context.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  1) find the systems-level people (business and engineering) who signed-off on MCAS as being safe. point to them and say "how could you not have tested the failure modes of MCAS, specifically AoA sensors?". There's no answer to that. Off to prison. 2) find the people who allowed the Max to keep flying after the first wreck. Not literally one hour later, but once they had information that MCAS might have been involved, a crime was committed (endangering public safety) allowing flights after that moment. 3) If any whistle-blowers emailed their superiors about MCAS failures, whoever ignored the complaint committed a crime unless any written concerns were properly documented, filed, considered, etc.
_bxg1 7y ago
I honestly don't understand why families settle in this kind of case. It's one thing if the victim is alive and has medical bills. If they're dead, all you can hope to achieve is justice. Don't settle for money. Take them down. Make it actually hurt.

markdown 7y ago

You'd have to cause heavy losses (in money or lives) to the rich and powerful to see the executives get prison time (see Bernie Madoff). Some brown people on the other side of the world dying doesn't quite cut it.

my_username_is_ 7y ago

Could they potentially face jail time in Ethiopia or Indonesia (where the doomed flights flew from, and the airlines are based)? I'm sure there would be quite the fight over extradition, but it would certainly send the message that you can't escape your negligence because of an eye to corporate profit on a global scale.

throw20102010 7y ago
There would not be a fight over extradition, at least as long as the executives stay in the USA. The USA does not have an extradition treaty with either Ethiopia or Indonesia, and the USA won't even consider extradition if they are convicted of a crime that doesn't exist in the USA.
- ghayes 7y ago
  Doesn’t criminal negligence exist in the US, along with a number of other statutes that could apply? Not to say they would face trial here if the events occurred here, but there are laws that would apply given sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
  - throw20102010 7y ago
    First, I am not a lawyer. Yes, negligence can be tried as a criminal act, but there's no way this situation would pass the Justice Department's sniff test. Any negligence that would have happened almost certainly happened on US soil. Even though foreign governments are free to convict however they like, if the act happened on US soil and the US doesn't find you guilty of a crime, then there is no way they are handing you over. If in the unlikely case an executive is found guilty of a crime in the USA they would serve out their sentence in the USA first before extradition is considered. Even then, we'd be real reluctant to hand them over. What I think is more likely to happen (but still unlikely) is that Boeing is penalized through corporate liability. The aggregation of the executives' actions create a responsibility for Boeing, although no single person's actions meet any criminal action. In that case the USA would fine Boeing or punish it in some other way, but I don't think that money is going to Ethiopia or Indonesia. Lastly, since we don't have extradition agreements with either of those countries these arguments would probably not even come up, as we'd tell their embassy to go pound sand- we're not handing over American citizens until you reciprocate with us, prove that your courts are not kangaroo courts, and sign an extradition agreement. And there's no way we're signing one- you think the Trump administration is going to sign an extradition agreement with either of those countries? No, these guys are going to skate. Some references, they probably don't hit everything but they are a good start: https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-612-role-department-state-foreign-extradition-requests https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-612-role... https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-603-determination-extraditability https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-603-dete... https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/extradition.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/extradition....
bitexploder 7y ago
It could certainly complicate their lives, but I doubt we would ever extradite them.
- delinka 7y ago
  Extradition not required. Start threatening their business in these countries. They could try something like "no Boeing aircraft in our airspace" while they refuse to cooperate. Get their local allies on board with a similar ban, and then maybe the Boeing board would hand them over willingly. That's quite the hypothetical, and I don't advocate it. But they certainly don't have to be limited by extradition.
  - ukulele 7y ago
    > maybe the Boeing board would hand them over willingly This is not something the board can do
    - delinka 7y ago
      Sure they can. They can physically make it happen. Put money in the right hands and it happens. Morally, ethically, legally questionable. But certainly not impossible. I'm sure they'd just fire the executive(s) in question first. Lots cleaner and maybe cheaper depending on the golden parachute in the executive's back pocket.

superbaconman 7y ago

But why is everyone blaming Boeing? They were working on the issue, and I wouldn't want to rush a software patch on plane either. The pilots clearly thought it was an issue, by why are they talking to Boeing? Shouldn't they be talking with the Carrier? I mean if anyone is to blame for loss of life surely it's the carriers?

c0nfused 7y ago
Everyone is blaming boeing because every time you think you learned the last possible either dumb or reckless thing they did with the 737 max there is another dumber more reckless thing. Every single rock you look under there is more of this crap. Let's recertify our jet instead of doing a new one, shorten time to market. New engines don't fit, ruin the handling of the aircraft. Can't recert that. Try to fix aircraft handling in software. Designed flawed system to hide this from pilots and get regulatory apptoval. Under testing discover that system as submitted to regulators does not work well enough in flight. Update to allow to run repeatedly instead of once as well as increasing movement ranger per cycle. Do not tell regulators. Ship aircraft with 1 hour iPad video intro for pilots. Do not mention this system. Discover that the indicator in the cockpit for sensor failure for the system only works if you have optional HUD upgrades. Sit on this data. Do not patch until your aircraft is grounded. Reassign the guys who are supposed to be doing safety oversight for you if they ask for more safety testing.
- ReGenGen 7y ago
  There is no evidence (yet) the MAX engines placement "ruin the handling of the aircraft". That's still speculation. Clearly it handles different from other 737 type aircraft which would require a different pilot type certification, which is a big deal and a huge competitive disadvantage vs a320neo.
  - Osiris 7y ago
    What? The whole purpose of MCAS was to address the tendency for the aircraft to pick up under throttle because the engineers are placed more forward on the wings causing a change in lift

fromthestart 7y ago

Serious question: how would you go about determining who is at fault in such a situation?

rectang 7y ago
Very difficult, just as it would be in any large organization. Facilitation of plausible deniability is a principle design requirement for company structure. Worse, because of the corporate shield, any malefactors get to keep their ill-gotten gains. (Wells Fargo's execs, even after clawbacks, wound up tens of millions of dollars ahead.) There's no serious deterrent -- the system encourages wrongdoing at the individual level, the perpetuation of entities where wrongdoing occurs, and the creation of new entities where wrongdoing will commence. Prediction: everyone at Boeing will come in for a safe landing after a bit of turbulence.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Not sure. Every single design change goes through well documented review processes in Aerospace. The bigger the change the higher the up the hierarchy it goes. The definitely is a paper trail here. If someone is willing to investigate. Agree with rest, organized deniability is pretty much how large orgs are set up.
rhizome 7y ago
Start with the people whose signatures exist on paper, or however the approval chain works in this context.
JudgeWapner 7y ago
1) find the systems-level people (business and engineering) who signed-off on MCAS as being safe. point to them and say "how could you not have tested the failure modes of MCAS, specifically AoA sensors?". There's no answer to that. Off to prison. 2) find the people who allowed the Max to keep flying after the first wreck. Not literally one hour later, but once they had information that MCAS might have been involved, a crime was committed (endangering public safety) allowing flights after that moment. 3) If any whistle-blowers emailed their superiors about MCAS failures, whoever ignored the complaint committed a crime unless any written concerns were properly documented, filed, considered, etc.

_bxg1 7y ago

I honestly don't understand why families settle in this kind of case. It's one thing if the victim is alive and has medical bills. If they're dead, all you can hope to achieve is justice. Don't settle for money. Take them down. Make it actually hurt.