6 ms·

I think overall we should consider this process a very positive thing, FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which

by brentm 7y ago

I think overall we should consider this process a very positive thing, FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future. It's unfortunate that it took two tragedies to get us here but if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time.

cjbprime 7y ago
The reason people are outraged is that "don't use a single sensor to decide that the plane should perform an uncontrollable nose-dive" isn't the outcome of new learning. That wasn't competent airworthiness seventy years ago. It's a lesson the industry thought it had already internalized. We shouldn't applaud mistakes of the distant part being repeated recklessly as some kind of improvement.
- mantap 7y ago
  What seems to have happened is that the system was originally designed with more conservative parameters. Testing showed that these parameters were insufficient to prevent a stall so they "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design.
  - salawat 7y ago
    It wasn't that it wasn't sufficient. It was that they found similar behavior happening in a low-speed part of the flight envelope. That required increasing the authority and losing the G-load safeguard.
  - jussij 7y ago
    > "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design. In other words they thru all engineers principals out the window. Now there is no doubt this is exactly what happened. But the bigger question is why did this happen and why was it allowed to happen?
- jussij 7y ago
  What amazes me about this whole sorry saga is what appears to be blatant deception on the part of Boeing. Boeing somehow tricked the FAA into believing, from the pilots perspective the 737-MAX and 737 were the exact same plane. That allowed the plane to enter service quickly as it meant the pilots would not require any flight simulator retraining. What we now know is the 737-MAX is nothing like the 737 and the level of deception that seems to have occurred is concerning.
  - sopooneo 7y ago
    I don't think they "tricked [them] into believing". More like "talked them into accepting".
    - bronson 7y ago
      More like deceived: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattletimes.com/business/b... Whether it was intentional to meet the schedule or accidental, we may never know.
    - taneq 7y ago
      The only difference between these two descriptions is whether the FAA implicitly understood that the MAX is NOT the same as the 737. If yes, then they were talked into accepting it anyway. If no, then they were tricked (unless Boeing genuinely believed that there was no difference, which is clearly false.)
      - nolok 7y ago
        The kind of people who work at the FAA jobs where those decision are made know enough about planes to realize that a different engine placement is not without effect. That alone means they should at least have done extensive testing internally, which they didn't since it was pretty much clear they used the older 737 simulators / didn't have 737 MAX simulators.
    - 7y ago
computerex 7y ago
This isn't some previously undiscovered issue in aviation. This is plain and simple Boeing prioritizing cost savings over human lives. It is as simple as that. There are no technical takeaways to be had from the two tragedies that took place. The only takeaway is that Boeing betrayed everyone but their pockets.
- crististm 7y ago
  short term thinking vs long term consequences...
cmiles74 7y ago
I would prefer that Boeing be put out of business, rather than "learning a lot from this process". I think that the word "unfortunate" is too conservative to cover this situation. A corporation is not a person and punishment isn't always the answer, but we are looking at a lot of deaths and this new issue sounds like it could have caused even more. If the FAA had missed this one we could have been looking at another crash. Maybe putting Boeing out of business would serve as a cautionary tale to the remaining companies in this space that they should be making more conservative choices when it comes to development of a product that has the potential to injure or kill such a large number of people. As it is, I'm not sure what the moral of this story is for Boeing. Is it that the company is "too big to fail"? It is that they need to tough out the bad press to really be successful? I worry that maybe it's something along the lines of "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette."
- whyenot 7y ago
  Boeing is never going to be "put out of business." They are too important to the US economy and US national defense for that to ever happen. What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law.
  - BorRagnarok 7y ago
    > What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law. Sorry, I laughed. That will never happen. Boeing may go under, but those rich bastards will always be able to stay out of jail. Name me one exec of a plane manufacturing company that has gone to jail over a crash. There aren't any.
BorRagnarok 7y ago
> FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future Yeah, right. Until they start cutting corners again for economic reasons. There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations, it's all a dog and pony show driven by money and saving their asses. "if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time" And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years. Until people start demanding that at least the goal of those organizations should be Total and Complete Flight Safety, the FAA and Boeing will cut corners because "accidents will always happen, this isn't the first and it won't be the last, so who cares". Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations How fast do you think this stuff can happen? >And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years. The next horrible accident is going to happen in a few years, sorry to tell you. >Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen. I'm going to assume you're no engineer.
  - salawat 7y ago
    >I'm going to assume you're no engineer. I'm pretty sure what you're trying to get across is that Engineering is the business of enabling the taking of calculated risks, but you're doing it in a needlessly inflammatory way. And the poster you're responding to isn't necessarily wrong either. Just because engineering allows us to identify, analyze, and calculate the impact of risks does not free us of an obligation to always favor the most conservative approach in living up to the obligation to comport ourselves in a manner consistent with serving the Public interest. Remember the Iron Ring in all things.
  - 7y ago

by brentm 7y ago

cjbprime 7y ago

The reason people are outraged is that "don't use a single sensor to decide that the plane should perform an uncontrollable nose-dive" isn't the outcome of new learning. That wasn't competent airworthiness seventy years ago. It's a lesson the industry thought it had already internalized. We shouldn't applaud mistakes of the distant part being repeated recklessly as some kind of improvement.

mantap 7y ago
What seems to have happened is that the system was originally designed with more conservative parameters. Testing showed that these parameters were insufficient to prevent a stall so they "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design.
- salawat 7y ago
  It wasn't that it wasn't sufficient. It was that they found similar behavior happening in a low-speed part of the flight envelope. That required increasing the authority and losing the G-load safeguard.
- jussij 7y ago
  > "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design. In other words they thru all engineers principals out the window. Now there is no doubt this is exactly what happened. But the bigger question is why did this happen and why was it allowed to happen?
jussij 7y ago
What amazes me about this whole sorry saga is what appears to be blatant deception on the part of Boeing. Boeing somehow tricked the FAA into believing, from the pilots perspective the 737-MAX and 737 were the exact same plane. That allowed the plane to enter service quickly as it meant the pilots would not require any flight simulator retraining. What we now know is the 737-MAX is nothing like the 737 and the level of deception that seems to have occurred is concerning.
- sopooneo 7y ago
  I don't think they "tricked [them] into believing". More like "talked them into accepting".
  - bronson 7y ago
    More like deceived: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattletimes.com/business/b... Whether it was intentional to meet the schedule or accidental, we may never know.
  - taneq 7y ago
    The only difference between these two descriptions is whether the FAA implicitly understood that the MAX is NOT the same as the 737. If yes, then they were talked into accepting it anyway. If no, then they were tricked (unless Boeing genuinely believed that there was no difference, which is clearly false.)
    - nolok 7y ago
      The kind of people who work at the FAA jobs where those decision are made know enough about planes to realize that a different engine placement is not without effect. That alone means they should at least have done extensive testing internally, which they didn't since it was pretty much clear they used the older 737 simulators / didn't have 737 MAX simulators.
  - 7y ago

computerex 7y ago

This isn't some previously undiscovered issue in aviation. This is plain and simple Boeing prioritizing cost savings over human lives. It is as simple as that. There are no technical takeaways to be had from the two tragedies that took place. The only takeaway is that Boeing betrayed everyone but their pockets.

crististm 7y ago
short term thinking vs long term consequences...

cmiles74 7y ago

I would prefer that Boeing be put out of business, rather than "learning a lot from this process". I think that the word "unfortunate" is too conservative to cover this situation. A corporation is not a person and punishment isn't always the answer, but we are looking at a lot of deaths and this new issue sounds like it could have caused even more. If the FAA had missed this one we could have been looking at another crash. Maybe putting Boeing out of business would serve as a cautionary tale to the remaining companies in this space that they should be making more conservative choices when it comes to development of a product that has the potential to injure or kill such a large number of people. As it is, I'm not sure what the moral of this story is for Boeing. Is it that the company is "too big to fail"? It is that they need to tough out the bad press to really be successful? I worry that maybe it's something along the lines of "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette."

whyenot 7y ago
Boeing is never going to be "put out of business." They are too important to the US economy and US national defense for that to ever happen. What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law.
- BorRagnarok 7y ago
  > What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law. Sorry, I laughed. That will never happen. Boeing may go under, but those rich bastards will always be able to stay out of jail. Name me one exec of a plane manufacturing company that has gone to jail over a crash. There aren't any.

BorRagnarok 7y ago

> FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future Yeah, right. Until they start cutting corners again for economic reasons. There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations, it's all a dog and pony show driven by money and saving their asses. "if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time" And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years. Until people start demanding that at least the goal of those organizations should be Total and Complete Flight Safety, the FAA and Boeing will cut corners because "accidents will always happen, this isn't the first and it won't be the last, so who cares". Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen.

navigatesol 7y ago
>There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations How fast do you think this stuff can happen? >And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years. The next horrible accident is going to happen in a few years, sorry to tell you. >Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen. I'm going to assume you're no engineer.
- salawat 7y ago
  >I'm going to assume you're no engineer. I'm pretty sure what you're trying to get across is that Engineering is the business of enabling the taking of calculated risks, but you're doing it in a needlessly inflammatory way. And the poster you're responding to isn't necessarily wrong either. Just because engineering allows us to identify, analyze, and calculate the impact of risks does not free us of an obligation to always favor the most conservative approach in living up to the obligation to comport ourselves in a manner consistent with serving the Public interest. Remember the Iron Ring in all things.
- 7y ago