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The Boeing of those days was a different company than Boeing today, and the public knows it. That Boeing was driven by engineers with safety as their highest pr

The Boeing of those days was a different company than Boeing today, and the public knows it. That Boeing was driven by engineers with safety as their highest priority. Today's Boeing is driven by suits with profit as their highest priority. This Boeing has lost the public's trust. Even if they fix MCAS, how do we know there aren't other safety corners cut in the design just waiting to kill somebody?

chopin 7y ago
Not only Boeing lost public trust but presumably the FAA as well. At least outside US this may have even more severe implications. Boeing better not loses one more plane due to design issues.
dmix 7y ago
The 1990s of those initial failures also predated the information heavy internet hyper analysis and outrage machines
- nosianu 7y ago
  It's the messenger's fault. Of course! What arguments do you have that show that lots and lots of articles about about Boeings culture change are all wrong or insignificant (not a contributor to the Max's issues)? I'm also not sure why you think a heuristic that uses amount of outrage as an inverse measure of the validity of an issue is a useful one. I would assume the connection is either non-existent or very weak, meaning you cannot infer anything useful about an issue from how much it is being discussed in the media and in public forums.
  - extempore 7y ago
    You are reading a great deal into an innocuous comment.
  - jakemal 7y ago
    The point of the comment was that people likely cared less because people heard about it significantly less.
- piva00 7y ago
  Given what we know now, after the outrage took out of the closet a lot of information previously obscured and out of the limelight, about Boeing's issues in production and design and the regulatory capture of the FAA: do you still think this whole backlash against the 737 MAX is purely the internet hyper analysis and outrage machine?
  - dmix 7y ago
    Nope, that wasn't my point obviously. Just highlighting it was a different time for media and analysis.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
The "suits" didn't just take over last year. The complaint is at least as old as their move to Chicago in 2001. That would at least put the 787 in the same class of "suit-designed" aircraft. And yet, air travel today is far safer than it has ever been, the 737 non-withstanding. Considering air travel has increased by almost an order of magnitude since the heydays of engineering-run Boeing in the 60s, and fatalities have decreased by a similar factor, air travel today is about 70x safer than it was in the past. Based on this data, any nostalgic theories of how safety today is being ruined by <x> are really hard to defend.
- braindeath 7y ago
  The data we have is the 737 MAX itself that stands out in the backdrop of ever increasing safety. That happened. The 787 possibly being a safe plane is irrelevant and doesn’t change that. > And yet, air travel today is far safer than it has ever been, the 737 non-withstanding. Boeing doesn’t get to take credit for all the advances in air safety in the past 40 years.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    > Boeing doesn’t get to take credit for all the advances in air safety in the past 40 years. No, but they can certainly take credit for some of those advances.
- slumdev 7y ago
  > That would at least put the 787 in the same class of "suit-designed" aircraft. The 787 is a suit-designed aircraft. Composite materials are not ready for prime time. They are a gamble that Boeing suits have made against passenger lives. If the bet pays out, the planes save a miniscule amount of fuel compared to planes made of traditional materials. If the bet does not pay out, people die. Only a few months ago, we discovered more 737 problems. These were unrelated to MCAS. Instead, they affected the part that holds the wing to the fuselage: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/29/boeing-faces-new-737-issue-cracks-wing-supports-ng-version/3812795002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/29/boeing...

chopin 7y ago

Not only Boeing lost public trust but presumably the FAA as well. At least outside US this may have even more severe implications. Boeing better not loses one more plane due to design issues.

dmix 7y ago

The 1990s of those initial failures also predated the information heavy internet hyper analysis and outrage machines

nosianu 7y ago
It's the messenger's fault. Of course! What arguments do you have that show that lots and lots of articles about about Boeings culture change are all wrong or insignificant (not a contributor to the Max's issues)? I'm also not sure why you think a heuristic that uses amount of outrage as an inverse measure of the validity of an issue is a useful one. I would assume the connection is either non-existent or very weak, meaning you cannot infer anything useful about an issue from how much it is being discussed in the media and in public forums.
- extempore 7y ago
  You are reading a great deal into an innocuous comment.
- jakemal 7y ago
  The point of the comment was that people likely cared less because people heard about it significantly less.
piva00 7y ago
Given what we know now, after the outrage took out of the closet a lot of information previously obscured and out of the limelight, about Boeing's issues in production and design and the regulatory capture of the FAA: do you still think this whole backlash against the 737 MAX is purely the internet hyper analysis and outrage machine?
- dmix 7y ago
  Nope, that wasn't my point obviously. Just highlighting it was a different time for media and analysis.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

The "suits" didn't just take over last year. The complaint is at least as old as their move to Chicago in 2001. That would at least put the 787 in the same class of "suit-designed" aircraft. And yet, air travel today is far safer than it has ever been, the 737 non-withstanding. Considering air travel has increased by almost an order of magnitude since the heydays of engineering-run Boeing in the 60s, and fatalities have decreased by a similar factor, air travel today is about 70x safer than it was in the past. Based on this data, any nostalgic theories of how safety today is being ruined by <x> are really hard to defend.

braindeath 7y ago
The data we have is the 737 MAX itself that stands out in the backdrop of ever increasing safety. That happened. The 787 possibly being a safe plane is irrelevant and doesn’t change that. > And yet, air travel today is far safer than it has ever been, the 737 non-withstanding. Boeing doesn’t get to take credit for all the advances in air safety in the past 40 years.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > Boeing doesn’t get to take credit for all the advances in air safety in the past 40 years. No, but they can certainly take credit for some of those advances.
slumdev 7y ago
> That would at least put the 787 in the same class of "suit-designed" aircraft. The 787 is a suit-designed aircraft. Composite materials are not ready for prime time. They are a gamble that Boeing suits have made against passenger lives. If the bet pays out, the planes save a miniscule amount of fuel compared to planes made of traditional materials. If the bet does not pay out, people die. Only a few months ago, we discovered more 737 problems. These were unrelated to MCAS. Instead, they affected the part that holds the wing to the fuselage: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/29/boeing-faces-new-737-issue-cracks-wing-supports-ng-version/3812795002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/29/boeing...