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>The pilot, Mark Forkner, complained that the system, known as MCAS, was causing him trouble. “It’s running rampant in the sim,” he said in a message to a colle

>The pilot, Mark Forkner, complained that the system, known as MCAS, was causing him trouble. “It’s running rampant in the sim,” he said in a message to a colleague, referring to the simulator. "Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious,” he went on to say, according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed by The New York Times. People need to go to prison over this.

Judson 7y ago
I'm not sure if the link originally pointed to NYT, but the currently linked reuters report adds a bit more context to the messages. >Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).” The other employee responded that “it wasn’t a lie, no one told us that was the case” of an issue with MCAS. >Forkner responded soon after: “Granted I suck at flying, but even this was egregious.”
- jonplackett 7y ago
  I don’t really understand the context of these messages. The one about MCAS running rampant is clear enough but what does he mean saying that he sucks at flying? What is egregious?
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    I interpreted that as “I may be a bad pilot but MCAS made my trying to fly in the simulators particularly unsuccessful”
    - dmix 7y ago
      Nope he was complaining they made changes to the MCAS without telling him and he was concerned the simulator wasn’t accurate to the planes actual experience. Those are the pilots words and he’s saying the messages are being misinterpreted and cherry picked without context.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        That's not what it appears from context.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    I read it as self-deprecation. Something people do to take the edge off of bad news.
  - sz4kerto 7y ago
    He was joking, as if you'd be a professional F1 pilot and when testing a new car you would say "I suck at driving but this thing loses grip in the corners".
  - anon1m0us 7y ago
    Think about it from a Dunning-Kruger perspective. The more you know about flying, the worse you think you are. The pilot is an expert and very experienced. He knows what he doesn't know. He's acknowledging that even with all his experience, he could be wrong -- but clearly he wasn't.
privateSFacct 7y ago
Boeing has designed planes that have an INCREDIBLE safety record, particularly when flying in US regulated airspace. Interesting that prison time is demanded here when a much more simple explanation is that this was an oversight by the pilots in the sim who didn't fully understand the issue was MCAS related. Millions killed from opioid epidemics, thousands killed from violence and various preventable diseases, huge number of road fatalities do not result in prison time. The safety record of aviation in the US should be applauded.
- atonse 7y ago
  So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the place.
  - LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
    Sometimes a place can fall apart from the inside, knowledge rot eating away at a engineering culture, like termites at a house. In the end, its all still there- but not reliable. MCAS is ducttape. Ducttape applied, because the whole culture is by now incentivize screwed, pennywise optimizing instead of pound problem solving. A "carry on" is actually the hostile action in this situation. Sidenote: I like that you can not lie in modern society, because all data has copies and copies of copies.
  - Gpetrium 7y ago
    What op seems to imply is that airplane incidents rates actually have a stronger track record as opposed to the opioid epidemic, road fatality, etc. And that if society believes that this individual/group should go to prison based on this mistake and in hindsight, without account for all the other factors that were a part of the decision making process, then society should start reconsidering the way it treats opioid, road fatality, etc. The mindset of "quick to imprison" can also run the risk of creating a society that is overly averse to risk taking, which can hinder technology and scientific advances. For example, it may take 10 times as long to get a new, more advanced traffic light implemented in your city because now everyone wants to make sure no stone was left unturned, otherwise someone will get into an accident and a staff/group will be imprisoned. Or a new software is implemented but 3 months later it is found that failure under very specific scenarios has caused over 50 deaths. There are millions of potential scenarios that may fall under similar conditions as exemplified above. Please note that this writing is not advocating for or against either views, it is simply shedding light on risks that should be considered.
atonse 7y ago
I wholeheartedly agree. These are crimes that have resulted in hundreds of deaths.
nostromo 7y ago
Prison: our solution to every problem.
- davidw 7y ago
  IDK, it's overused in the US, but a lot of people died too and that's... pretty bad?
  - miracle2k 7y ago
    Sometimes people die and there is no one to blame. The tendency to find a scapegoat is strong and human and needs to be resisted. Maybe someone should go to jail here, but I doubt it.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      The legal definition of culpable negligence is actually pretty straightforward. I see no reason not to hold key decision-makers responsible for the consequences of decisions that aren't just misguided or incorrect, but actively and wilfully negligent of factual information - especially if they cause even more deaths by attempting to suppress that information and place blame on innocent parties.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  I'm normally against prison as a deterrent because it is used against people where it wouldn't work as a deterrent. In cases such as these it might actually work if the execs of such companies were simply jailed for a very long time as though they were about equally responsible as a regular bus driver would be if they were negligent at their job and killed a bunch of people. It just might have a positive effect the next time someone thinks they might get away with cutting some corners.
  - WJW 7y ago
    I would support this sentiment usually, but in this case I don't really see a way to determine the chain of responsibility. Who do we force into prison in this scenario? The engineer(s) who made MCAS? Just the one that wrote the lines of code that monitor the airflow sensors? Do we also imprison the QA people that signed off on this? Why not also their managers? Who of the C-suite? Probably the CTO and maybe the CEO, but isn't their behavior influenced by financial pressures from the CFO. Maybe we should just put them all into jail? The FAA was supposed to monitor this stuff but didn't. Should they be jailed as well? How about any congress people that cut the budget for the FAA? The list goes on. There are negative modifiers as well: what if the person who made MCAS was a very junior engineer in his/her first week? Are they still culpable? What if the CTO can prove they were never involved? I don't think it's all that easy who is responsible.
markus_zhang 7y ago
I'd LOL if it's just the pilot who gets the boot (to prison).

Judson 7y ago

I'm not sure if the link originally pointed to NYT, but the currently linked reuters report adds a bit more context to the messages. >Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).” The other employee responded that “it wasn’t a lie, no one told us that was the case” of an issue with MCAS. >Forkner responded soon after: “Granted I suck at flying, but even this was egregious.”

jonplackett 7y ago
I don’t really understand the context of these messages. The one about MCAS running rampant is clear enough but what does he mean saying that he sucks at flying? What is egregious?
- arcticbull 7y ago
  I interpreted that as “I may be a bad pilot but MCAS made my trying to fly in the simulators particularly unsuccessful”
  - dmix 7y ago
    Nope he was complaining they made changes to the MCAS without telling him and he was concerned the simulator wasn’t accurate to the planes actual experience. Those are the pilots words and he’s saying the messages are being misinterpreted and cherry picked without context.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      That's not what it appears from context.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I read it as self-deprecation. Something people do to take the edge off of bad news.
- sz4kerto 7y ago
  He was joking, as if you'd be a professional F1 pilot and when testing a new car you would say "I suck at driving but this thing loses grip in the corners".
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  Think about it from a Dunning-Kruger perspective. The more you know about flying, the worse you think you are. The pilot is an expert and very experienced. He knows what he doesn't know. He's acknowledging that even with all his experience, he could be wrong -- but clearly he wasn't.

privateSFacct 7y ago

Boeing has designed planes that have an INCREDIBLE safety record, particularly when flying in US regulated airspace. Interesting that prison time is demanded here when a much more simple explanation is that this was an oversight by the pilots in the sim who didn't fully understand the issue was MCAS related. Millions killed from opioid epidemics, thousands killed from violence and various preventable diseases, huge number of road fatalities do not result in prison time. The safety record of aviation in the US should be applauded.

atonse 7y ago
So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2tuKiiznsY This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the place.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  Sometimes a place can fall apart from the inside, knowledge rot eating away at a engineering culture, like termites at a house. In the end, its all still there- but not reliable. MCAS is ducttape. Ducttape applied, because the whole culture is by now incentivize screwed, pennywise optimizing instead of pound problem solving. A "carry on" is actually the hostile action in this situation. Sidenote: I like that you can not lie in modern society, because all data has copies and copies of copies.
- Gpetrium 7y ago
  What op seems to imply is that airplane incidents rates actually have a stronger track record as opposed to the opioid epidemic, road fatality, etc. And that if society believes that this individual/group should go to prison based on this mistake and in hindsight, without account for all the other factors that were a part of the decision making process, then society should start reconsidering the way it treats opioid, road fatality, etc. The mindset of "quick to imprison" can also run the risk of creating a society that is overly averse to risk taking, which can hinder technology and scientific advances. For example, it may take 10 times as long to get a new, more advanced traffic light implemented in your city because now everyone wants to make sure no stone was left unturned, otherwise someone will get into an accident and a staff/group will be imprisoned. Or a new software is implemented but 3 months later it is found that failure under very specific scenarios has caused over 50 deaths. There are millions of potential scenarios that may fall under similar conditions as exemplified above. Please note that this writing is not advocating for or against either views, it is simply shedding light on risks that should be considered.

atonse 7y ago

I wholeheartedly agree. These are crimes that have resulted in hundreds of deaths.

nostromo 7y ago

Prison: our solution to every problem.

davidw 7y ago
IDK, it's overused in the US, but a lot of people died too and that's... pretty bad?
- miracle2k 7y ago
  Sometimes people die and there is no one to blame. The tendency to find a scapegoat is strong and human and needs to be resisted. Maybe someone should go to jail here, but I doubt it.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    The legal definition of culpable negligence is actually pretty straightforward. I see no reason not to hold key decision-makers responsible for the consequences of decisions that aren't just misguided or incorrect, but actively and wilfully negligent of factual information - especially if they cause even more deaths by attempting to suppress that information and place blame on innocent parties.
jacquesm 7y ago
I'm normally against prison as a deterrent because it is used against people where it wouldn't work as a deterrent. In cases such as these it might actually work if the execs of such companies were simply jailed for a very long time as though they were about equally responsible as a regular bus driver would be if they were negligent at their job and killed a bunch of people. It just might have a positive effect the next time someone thinks they might get away with cutting some corners.
- WJW 7y ago
  I would support this sentiment usually, but in this case I don't really see a way to determine the chain of responsibility. Who do we force into prison in this scenario? The engineer(s) who made MCAS? Just the one that wrote the lines of code that monitor the airflow sensors? Do we also imprison the QA people that signed off on this? Why not also their managers? Who of the C-suite? Probably the CTO and maybe the CEO, but isn't their behavior influenced by financial pressures from the CFO. Maybe we should just put them all into jail? The FAA was supposed to monitor this stuff but didn't. Should they be jailed as well? How about any congress people that cut the budget for the FAA? The list goes on. There are negative modifiers as well: what if the person who made MCAS was a very junior engineer in his/her first week? Are they still culpable? What if the CTO can prove they were never involved? I don't think it's all that easy who is responsible.

markus_zhang 7y ago

I'd LOL if it's just the pilot who gets the boot (to prison).