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> In the middle of the Max’s development, two of the most seasoned engineers in the F.A.A.’s Boeing office left. > In their place, the F.A.A. appointed an engi

> In the middle of the Max’s development, two of the most seasoned engineers in the F.A.A.’s Boeing office left. > In their place, the F.A.A. appointed an engineer who had little experience in flight controls, and a new hire who had gotten his master’s degree three years earlier. This is how you grow an army of YES-men without any substantial backbone. The type that makes good middle managers and keeps the process moving smoothly. Unfortunately for these engineers, they might ultimately be responsible for the system they signed off on.

mtgx 7y ago
They will be the scapegoats thrown under the bus when the scandals will erupt. Remember Volkswagen's "rogue engineer" who apparently single-highhandedly caused millions of VW vehicles to cheat on emission tests? Yeah, don't be that guy and whistle-blow on such things.
tomohawk 7y ago
This is how the government works. The government is just an institution, and institutions do not care about you. They just don't. They follow their rules and guidelines. If the guide is to put a GS-13 in that slot (employment category), then that is what will happen. There's no magic. Just rules. Boeing did not build great planes because of the FAA. They built them because their culture and expertise were aligned to do so. In the fact, the safety culture at Boeing was once so great that they often worked with the FAA to establish standards and guidelines, because the FAA simply did not have the expertise that Boeing had. When that culture failed, Boeing failed.
- std_throwaway 7y ago
  It goes deeper all the way to the value systems that once were bestowed upon the populace by the church.
  - cmurf 7y ago
    Money is the new deity and we're selling out values to get it. Corruption and trust loss follow the insistence that the government can't be trusted. But it's a nation of spectators, people who want to be entertained, a decadent culture, not of citizens. It will continue to corrupt itself until we care to hold it accountable. And if we don't, it will turn into something where individuals have even less say than we do now.
    - Camas 7y ago
      Governments in the developed world today are probably some of the least corrupt in history.
      - AdrianB1 7y ago
        The least perceived corrupt or publicly corrupt? Because they are anything but "least corrupt".
        Camas 7y ago
        How are they anything but "least corrupt"? History is a long list of vested interests.
        kevingadd 7y ago
        It's hard to argue that post-citizens-united USA with businessmen using political offices to score business deals and increase revenue at their owned businesses is "least corrupt" compared to, say, 20-50 years ago when it was harder to buy political office and people like President Carter sold off their businesses to avoid a conflict of interest. The US, at least, has backslid.
  - acjohnson55 7y ago
    Please. It's not hard to look back and see how immoral plenty of things were in the good old churchgoing days.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "Boeing did not build great planes because of the FAA. They built them because their culture and expertise were aligned to do so." People say things like this, that when a company is competent, or ethical, or whatever, that it's not thanks to the government. Yet I hear/read every day where a company says that they cannot do a given sensible, or ethical thing because it is not mandated by law. Every disclosure (e.g. privacy) I get with a financial account says that they cannot give customers more rights than are mandated by law. I wonder what the reason for this disconnect is?
  - tomohawk 7y ago
    Government regulation can certainly help, as long as you can somehow ensure adequate expertise and actions are taken. For example, a lot of farm raised shrimp from outside the US is not what it is advertised to be. This impacts legit US producers who want to sell healthy food by putting them out of business. If the USDA and FDA actually were competently regulating, then this would not happen. Aircraft are much more difficult. When making the 747, Boeing was faced with needing to have it certified by the FAA, but FAA did not have the expertise to do that. So Boeing worked with the FAA to develop the regs and tests and so on. I really cannot imagine how the FAA would ever be able to hold on to a competent aviation grade software engineer for very long. Even if they could hire one, within a year or two their skills would atrophe.
    - rdtwo 7y ago
      The Faa engineer does not write code. They review archictal level changes and plans. I would be surprised if they even saw the raw code, it’s more likely to be a logic diagram or a higher level schematic and then a test plan to validate it works as expected
    - markdown 7y ago
      > This impacts legit US producers who want to sell healthy food by putting them out of business. I'm sorry but there is no evidence for this claim. I can't think of a single Big Food company that wants to sell healthy food. Look at the poultry industry. Look at how milk, pork, and beef are produced. There's no reason to believe that "Big Shrimp" would be any more ethical. Local corporations put profit before health and safety just as much as foreign corporations do.

mtgx 7y ago

They will be the scapegoats thrown under the bus when the scandals will erupt. Remember Volkswagen's "rogue engineer" who apparently single-highhandedly caused millions of VW vehicles to cheat on emission tests? Yeah, don't be that guy and whistle-blow on such things.

tomohawk 7y ago

This is how the government works. The government is just an institution, and institutions do not care about you. They just don't. They follow their rules and guidelines. If the guide is to put a GS-13 in that slot (employment category), then that is what will happen. There's no magic. Just rules. Boeing did not build great planes because of the FAA. They built them because their culture and expertise were aligned to do so. In the fact, the safety culture at Boeing was once so great that they often worked with the FAA to establish standards and guidelines, because the FAA simply did not have the expertise that Boeing had. When that culture failed, Boeing failed.

std_throwaway 7y ago
It goes deeper all the way to the value systems that once were bestowed upon the populace by the church.
- cmurf 7y ago
  Money is the new deity and we're selling out values to get it. Corruption and trust loss follow the insistence that the government can't be trusted. But it's a nation of spectators, people who want to be entertained, a decadent culture, not of citizens. It will continue to corrupt itself until we care to hold it accountable. And if we don't, it will turn into something where individuals have even less say than we do now.
  - Camas 7y ago
    Governments in the developed world today are probably some of the least corrupt in history.
    - AdrianB1 7y ago
      The least perceived corrupt or publicly corrupt? Because they are anything but "least corrupt".
      - Camas 7y ago
        How are they anything but "least corrupt"? History is a long list of vested interests.
        kevingadd 7y ago
        It's hard to argue that post-citizens-united USA with businessmen using political offices to score business deals and increase revenue at their owned businesses is "least corrupt" compared to, say, 20-50 years ago when it was harder to buy political office and people like President Carter sold off their businesses to avoid a conflict of interest. The US, at least, has backslid.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  Please. It's not hard to look back and see how immoral plenty of things were in the good old churchgoing days.
perl4ever 7y ago
"Boeing did not build great planes because of the FAA. They built them because their culture and expertise were aligned to do so." People say things like this, that when a company is competent, or ethical, or whatever, that it's not thanks to the government. Yet I hear/read every day where a company says that they cannot do a given sensible, or ethical thing because it is not mandated by law. Every disclosure (e.g. privacy) I get with a financial account says that they cannot give customers more rights than are mandated by law. I wonder what the reason for this disconnect is?
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Government regulation can certainly help, as long as you can somehow ensure adequate expertise and actions are taken. For example, a lot of farm raised shrimp from outside the US is not what it is advertised to be. This impacts legit US producers who want to sell healthy food by putting them out of business. If the USDA and FDA actually were competently regulating, then this would not happen. Aircraft are much more difficult. When making the 747, Boeing was faced with needing to have it certified by the FAA, but FAA did not have the expertise to do that. So Boeing worked with the FAA to develop the regs and tests and so on. I really cannot imagine how the FAA would ever be able to hold on to a competent aviation grade software engineer for very long. Even if they could hire one, within a year or two their skills would atrophe.
  - rdtwo 7y ago
    The Faa engineer does not write code. They review archictal level changes and plans. I would be surprised if they even saw the raw code, it’s more likely to be a logic diagram or a higher level schematic and then a test plan to validate it works as expected
  - markdown 7y ago
    > This impacts legit US producers who want to sell healthy food by putting them out of business. I'm sorry but there is no evidence for this claim. I can't think of a single Big Food company that wants to sell healthy food. Look at the poultry industry. Look at how milk, pork, and beef are produced. There's no reason to believe that "Big Shrimp" would be any more ethical. Local corporations put profit before health and safety just as much as foreign corporations do.