17 ms·

Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

380 points by jfaat 7y ago

shadowgovt 7y ago
Any internal correspondence can become public information in a disclosure proces. ~ first rule of corporate communications
- Pxtl 7y ago
  Yup. Talk as much crap as you want in person, but what goes in email and web messages and pull-requests and code comments must be immaculate.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - deleted 7y ago
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  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Why? I’ve ragged on my employers in DMs, and will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs. Providing my opinions in such channels is part of what I’m paid to do. If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, manages to majorly mess something up, and my comments come back to haunt them, why is that my problem?
    - solatic 7y ago
      Because openness and transparency requires emotional security as a prerequisite. Surveillance and transparency are not the same thing. If you subject people to an all-seeing eye, people will default to covering their asses, and you will not get the information you seek. Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. You will get "my biggest weakness is that I care too much"-type deflective responses at best and a cold shoulder at worst. In companies, a culture with emotional security is built first in private one-on-one meetings and spread from there - it never originates in a public (public within the company at least) setting.
      - AmericanChopper 7y ago
        I’m not sure how this relates to what I asked at all. If something I said at work gets leaked to the public or a regulator, that makes my employer look bad, why should I worry about that? That sounds a lot more like their problem than mine. > Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. This comment makes no sense to me. Aside from not relating to what I said, I cannot possibly see how being open and honest is forcing anybody else to do anything. Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job. Ironically, the only people who have ever had a problem with it are middle managers trying to cover up after themselves, and incompetent people that were somehow promoted to technical leadership roles they had no business being in. People I have no problems upsetting.
        solatic 7y ago
        > Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job. This is more or less my point. If your employer was happy with it, then your employer was the kind of employer attempting to build a transparent organization (and worked to build emotional security etc.). If your employer wasn't happy with it, then you and your employer have different opinions on the importance of transparency, which points to a cultural mismatch, which points in the direction of parting ways. The key insight is understanding that it's the employer, not the employee, who have both the responsibility and the power to set culture and direction. So if the employer decides not to work on building transparency into the culture, the employer will get an opaque culture as a result. Maybe this results in the kind of problems that Boeing is suffering from now, maybe it results in bankruptcy, maybe not. The employer is responsible and accountable to decide. The employee's decision is much simpler - adapt or leave. Most people decide to adapt; the potential upside to leaving is a murky gamble taken on faith, particularly if people don't have a specific offer lined up at a specific place that seems to be a better fit for specific reasons. So it shouldn't be a surprise to you that employers get what they (intentionally or unintentionally) incentivize.
      - craftinator 7y ago
    - elliekelly 7y ago
      > why is that my problem? This kind of attitude is the problem. You’re supposed to be working together toward the same goal. As a team. A team of “not my problem” people who are working only towards their own individual goals (or worse, CYA) is the most toxic team that can exist.
      - comex 7y ago
        The beginning of the sentence: > If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, I think the OP’s assumption – or at least hope – is that if they identify a problem so severe that disclosure would be a serious liability, then their employer will heed their advice, and fix it. The shared goal is producing quality results, not covering anyone’s ass (either OP’s or their employer’s) when they don’t.
      - CheesecakeFred 7y ago
        I think you missed the point, "will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs" means he straight up communicates any issue without sugar-coating. Which is what you want from a conscious employee. If despite that someone higher up in the decision chain ignores the issue (in the case of safety risks, that is criminal negligence), to continue to fight this battle is pointless and would only mean risking one's career for nothing.
        shadowgovt 7y ago
        I think there's a fine line between communicating without sugar-coating and speaking past one's own local knowledge of a problem that a lot of engineers don't recognize.
        AmericanChopper 7y ago
        There’s plenty of ways that an IC can misconstrue managers not acting on their advice, and usually they come down to a lack of understanding the organisation, or immaturity. Having learnt a lot of those lessons the hard way throughout my career, I’d like to think I usually don’t fall into those traps. The most common one I’d say is when an IC thinks whatever they’re concerned about is much more important than the organisation thinks it is. In such a situation, as long as I’ve communicated my concerns to the right people, I never have any bitterness about an organisation accepting risks I’ve raised after proper analysis (unless of course, it has some impact, and then they start politically back pedalling the risk acceptance). Personally, due to the nature of my work, I am often brought in to contribute to projects that are either well under way, or nearing completion. I will often find things that I think are risks or other issues at this stage. Any time this happens, there’s a whole bunch of things that could explain what I’ve found. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake in my assessment, perhaps there’s some mitigation (planned or otherwise) that I’m not aware of, perhaps they already know about it and have accepted it, perhaps there’s some major constraint I don’t know about... So I ask around and try find out if there are any easy answers. If not, then I’ll escalate it to other stakeholders. Usually phrased something like “I’ve noticed this, I think it’s an issue for these reasons, and could potentially cause such-and-such an impact”, sometimes with “I’d suggest we consider this alternative approach” and potentially “I’d recommend delaying delivery of this project to address these concerns if necessary”. Even at this stage, I don’t know all the facts, so I simply express my thoughts without claiming to have any definitive conclusions, and trying my best to qualify them with where I believe the limits of my knowledge/understanding are. In a well run organisation, this will result in my concerns being proven either founded or unfounded, previously known or previously unknown, and some sort of action could result (even if that’s only risk acceptance, further investigation, or plans for future mitigation). In a dysfunctional organisation, my concerns will either be dismissed off the bat, or pointlessly argued about by political actors. In my experience the latter reaction will usually come from incompetent management trying to conceals their failures, or incompetent contractors trying to defend their billable work. In the first case I’ll just make plans to leave the organisation. In the latter case I don’t really care. I’m a contractor myself, so my job is to deliver value to the employer (who would usually be happy with me in such a situation), I’m not particularly concerned about whether my work satisfies other contractors in that respect.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      They can come back to haunt them, come back to haunt you, and come back to haunt people you like at your company who get caught in the blast radius if your words are misinterpreted. Because when written material is disclosed and published, the person who made the original on-a-record statement doesn't usually get to testify as to what they meant, and your words will be interpreted by a litigious party hostile to the interests of your company, and sometimes by the public (after having their expectations primed by the litigious party hostile to the interests of your company). If you believe that your "ragging on your employers" can stand that level of scrutiny, then by all means, commit them to writing.
  - perlgeek 7y ago
    Even in person, you shouldn't talk crap all the time. It creates a toxic culture.
    - honestoHeminway 7y ago
      I have companys talking good things about themselve all the time. Its like a PR-Talkshow. The tech is rotten to the core, and its constantly failing - resulting in massive tech debt. Words are like money, if you print them with no backing up value, you might aswell save the paper. The design of the backnotes does little to the value. But if you print "Why mar currency? Cause we can." on the notes, the customers might appreciate the honesty, and give you back a little of another currency that is trust. I do not trust any company talk anymore at all. So print all the money you want, but you cant buy anything in my shop, thank you.
  - MaxfordAndSons 7y ago
    Heh, this reminds me: at a former employer, the eng team communicated exclusively by IRC (when Slack was already a thing) specifically because the CTO had previously experienced his communications being picked apart and taken out of context when his old company had ended up in the scope of a congressional investigation. So that's one way around it...
    - auiya 7y ago
      If it's being logged, it's subject to the discovery process, regardless of what protocol you're using.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  I completely agree, but I'm pretty sympathetic to the employees. I've worked enough and made enough jokes at work that I don't give much credence to them. At a lot of places I've worked, people internally often viewed the infrastructure as shit, even when it's well-received by users. I think it's part cynicism, and part that so much time goes to fixing bugs, when all you see is that bad part of something, it colors your judgement.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?
- wyxuan 7y ago
  Blow your whistle all you want but until something catastrophic happens, the whistleblowers would turn out the way the whistleblowers for the 737ng airframe cracking came out: fired and then ignored.
  - panarky 7y ago
    "This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys." The monkeys will ruthlessly suppress any evidence that they are monkeys or that they supervise clowns.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Whistle-blowing is misunderstood. You can't just start leaking internal documents and making accusations without evidence. ...that will get you fired, and possibly in jail. You need to talk to a lawyer, follow the legal process, and make allegations that you can PROVE. So many whistle-blowers come out with wild stories (often true), but since they bring zero evidence to the table they are ignored. ...and if they have evidence, they just blindly leak it to the press without going through the process, which can endanger people/privacy and destroy IP. Don't get me wrong - whistleblowers are important, but if you really want to make positive change and not just stick it to your employer - do it responsibly.
    - Scene_Cast2 7y ago
      It feels like the problem is cultural. If the culture doesn't allow enough time for confidence in deliverables, then what proof would you have? Often there are a million items that can go wrong (although all tests pass). So probabilistically something is wrong, but there's no solid item to latch on to.
stretchwithme 7y ago
Oh, no. People thinking thoughts and expressing them. Oh, my!
playeren 7y ago
> The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." Do you think this means: a) Change the environment that fosters those kinds of messages? -or- b) Punish those who wrote those messages?
- dannyw 7y ago
  Boeing is saying the language used and sentiments expressed are bad. They're not saying that releasing a plane that employees were sounding safety alarms are about is bad.
  - a1369209993 7y ago
    This. Exactly this. They are literally saying: > [Sounding safety alarms is] inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate [ie punitive] action in response [to prevent any alarms on the next unsafe design].
    - smcl 7y ago
      Boeing were dangerously incompetent w.r.t the 777 MAX, but I have to disagree here - this isn't about putting down whistleblowing or dissenting opinions. What they're saying is they are gonna slap some people on the wrist and issue company wide memo saying something to the effect of "Please don't say stupid embarrassing stuff like this in the company chat or over email". However we are in agreement that this isn't a commitment to fix any of underlying issues that caused this mess.
      - a1369209993 7y ago
        > slap some people on the wrist and issue company wide memo saying something to the effect of "Please don't say stupid embarrassing stuff like this in the company chat or over email". While that's on the low end of the range of severity I'd expect, I can't help but point out that that is, in fact, punitive action and would, in fact, discourage (albeit probably not prevent) any warnings about the next unsafe design.
bikeshed 7y ago
Cool how Boeing's response appears to be to find and punish those responsible for the communications, not those responsible for deceiving the FAA and regulators in order to certify an aircraft that never should have left the design phase.
tw04 7y ago
My favorite quote: >The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." Values? Your values appear to be maximizing profits at the expense of human lives. Your response to: "the guys developing our simulator were emailing back and forth they'd never fly on this plane" shouldn't be - let's fire them. It should be: how did management fail SO HORRENDOUSLY that the feedback from these testers wasn't pushed up the chain so we could build a reliable product? The fact that we're this far removed from the accidents and they still don't get it tells me the company probably needs to just fail.
- ryanisnan 7y ago
  I completely agree. It's a great example that they are still incapable of owning their mistakes, and cannot be trusted without a significant dressing down. Let them fail.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Except American interests will trump all so they'll play as dirty as they need against Airbus and kill Canadian aerospace in the process.
- notJim 7y ago
  This seems right to me. I think most of us have been in situations where we've commiserated with coworkers about a problem that we felt was beyond us to fix, because it's coming from the top. Either management is actively refusing to invest in the necessary changes, or they're creating an environment where it's not even safe to bring those problems to light. And even worse, a culture where it's normalized that there are unfixable problems, such that employees barely even remark on them.
tus88 7y ago
This is shocking. Said by a cynic.
blaisio 7y ago
I think this is a reminder - do not say or do inappropriate things using company resources (chat, email, VPN, etc). Don't complain about co-workers, don't joke about breaking the law, don't say or do anything rude or disrespectful. You'll get about 5 seconds of happiness from a joke that can ruin your career.
- freepor 7y ago
  That’s what you took away from this?
- TrueDuality 7y ago
  I'd blunt that with: It is still appropriate for you to respectfully raise concerns with coworkers, management, etc using company resources. That especially includes if you suspect something may actually be illegal, in violation of a contract etc. Basic human decency and ethics aside, getting fired is still better than going to jail as a scape goat.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  > You'll get about 5 seconds of happiness from a joke that can ruin your career. And your coworkers may gain enough courage to actually stand up publicly against what they all say in private. What a horrendously self-interested take on this whole saga.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sitkack 7y ago
  Boeing might be just the place for you.
boardwaalk 7y ago
The cost (not just money) of this to Boeing needs to be way, way more than the cost of the additional training/certification/better sensors and software or whatever would have been needed to do this right to begin with. We can’t let this to come down to a cynical “what’s the cost of a life?”-style calculation. It needs to be much more consequential relative to the crime/incompetence than Equifax, Facebook, etc.
linsomniac 7y ago
"this airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys" In the moment, I would imagine this comes across as sour grapes. With the benefit of hindsight, that sentiment seems to hold some water.
- mzs 7y ago
  It's about how bad the flight management computer is, the ridiculously short testing timeline, and how it is likely to never be fixed: https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1215475933966192640 https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/12154759339661926...
- Traster 7y ago
  That comment leapt out to me to. I would wager that the same sentiment has been expressed about any sufficiently large project whether it's successful or not. There's always going to be someone in a company who thinks someone else is an idiot.
btmorex 7y ago
I think the only thing that can actually fix Boeing is bankruptcy, so I hope that people refuse to fly on the Max even after recertification and it ends up being too big of a financial blow to recover from.
- oska 7y ago
  I agree. I'll be boycotting the Max just on principle, regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. I'm hoping (and kind of expecting) that people will build simple apps or websites to check whether an advertised flight is on a 737 Max. It should be quite easy for people to avoid/boycott this plane.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. To be fair, after this the Max is likely to be one of the most intensively studied and prepped planes in existence for pilots who might have to fly one. Pilots don't want to die either.
    - tigershark 7y ago
      How can all the study and preparation of a pilot help in a catastrophic mechanical failure caused by some likely design flaw that still is not apparent?
      - int_hdlr 7y ago
        I think it's very apparent by now.
      - joking 7y ago
        The design of individual components is quite tested and actually most of them have a long history of performance as they have been in use for a long time. On the other hand, I'm not confident on the design and integration of those components in the whole package.
  - 7y ago
djabatt 7y ago
This sort of stuff makes me freak out when I find out I am flying on a Boeing product. I expect people that are making aircraft to be better than when this NPR reporting purports.
- zxienin 7y ago
  It’s panicking thought to assume that similar culture and malice doesn’t exist at Airbus, just because they haven’t had their public 737 MAX event yet.
rurp 7y ago
Wow, this article is full of amazing quotes. I highly recommend reading the entire thing. My favorite one I haven't seen posted yet > "I still haven't been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year," one employee says in 2018, referring to an exchange of information with the FAA. Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently.
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently. What amazes me is that the same thing is happening with Tesla, but HN hardly bats an eye, because Silicon Valley: https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-push-to-build-a-self-driving-car-sparks-dissent-among-its-engineers-1503593742 https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-push-to-build-a-self-dri... Engineers speaking up and getting fired or resigning. What's worse is that, as opposed to having a choice to fly on a 737 MAX, driving on autopilot on public roads puts other people at risk.
  - elcomet 7y ago
    But a car involves far less people than a plane.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    There is a very fundamental difference. The Tesla autopilot is a mere driving assist system. Like with plain cruise control, the driver is still fully in charge and needs to pay enough attention to take over at any moment. All accidents happened because drivers were not paying attention at all. With the Boeing, the MCAS system put the 737 in a flight state which trained pilots couldn't recover from.
    - aguyfromnb 7y ago
      >The Tesla autopilot is a mere driving assist system. Yes, when you follow ambiguous instructions, which contradict things like, "Only waiting for regulatory approval!", or"1 million robotaxis this year!" or "Cars can drive by themselves coast-to-coast!"
forwhomst 7y ago
I've worked at companies where I had to take annual hour-long training sessions about not saying stuff like this in discoverable communications.
blululu 7y ago
Someone once gave the sage advice of never using the word 'kill' in your code base. 'm_Object.KillListeners();' can sound pretty bad in court. A lawyer can try to make your source code a legal matter, and a jury is free to interpret 'm_Object.KillChildren();' as being proof of willful negligence. Of course, this doesn't really matter when you're actually exposing willful negligence over your internal communication channels.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > man kill KILL(1) User Commands KILL(1) NAME kill - send a signal to a process SYNOPSIS kill [options] <pid> [...] Probably not a unix user then?
  - tirpen 7y ago
    That's exactly his/her point. To a techie it's obvious what it means, but if the code runs on some hardware that ends up killing people for real and the code gets inspected during discovery, having words like that could be a liability since jurors are less likely to understand the technical meaning. I worked in the automotive industry for a few years, we where told not to use the terms "crash","kill","die" and a few others anywhere in code or documentation for exactly this reason.
  - jplayer01 7y ago
    Opposing counsel doesn't care and nobody on the jury will be a Unix user. So ...
noodlesUK 7y ago
'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on a safety critical program and I thought it was risking lives I'd lose my shit. The employees that said this should be getting an "I told you so" badge, and the executive team should be going to prison. Fuck Boeing for this.
- dgzl 7y ago
  That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it works in a massive structure. Someone at one end thinks the values and ethic is one way, and the people at the other end have an entirely different understanding.
  - noodlesUK 7y ago
    There’s a difference between knowing something that would improve a system and knowing that there are specific flaws with a significant degree of lethality. It should be acceptable to miss someone telling you the first (if perhaps a missed opportunity), but it’s negligent to miss the second. It sounds to me that these people were taken aback and appalled by the cavalier attitude towards safety. If you have a decent number of professionals telling you something is unsafe and you ignore their cries, and then you kill people, you’ve fucked up in a big way. Edit: more to my original point though, the response should be to improve internal processes to prevent this kind of tragedy again, rather than to throw the people doing the right thing by speaking up under the bus, saying it’s against company culture to call out dangerous risks.
    - 7y ago
farseer 7y ago
>>The language used in these communications, and some of the sentiments they express, are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response. This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed. And that my friends is all that you need to know about the boeing of 2020.
- auiya 7y ago
  About a year ago, I was considering investing in Boeing. I would have made a good chunk of change doing so. I'm glad today I decided not to.
jacquesm 7y ago
It's interesting that Boeing apparently has a bigger issue with the language used than with the culture that fostered these communications in the first place. That is one sick company, trying hard to pretend it was a sick company.
rs23296008n1 7y ago
From the rpr article, "This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys" This says a lot about Boeing's internals / culture. Probably their subcontractor interaction quality as well. While we can't take one comment in isolation it is a relevant indicator. Its telling there were no[?] whistleblowers able to come forward beforehand. Consequences are too real and the search for the guilty talkers likely continues and I don't even think they were even remotely whistleblowers. Perhaps technical prowess isn't as highly respected as it should be? Too many corners cut? Excessive priority of business over engineering? Timelines too tight? Budgets too small? Misallocations? Don't know. Lots of symptoms of an unhealthy organization. It will become an interesting case-study regardless.
swebs 7y ago
Does anyone know where we can read the actual documents? This article is missing a lot of information.
- cdowns 7y ago
  This article has them: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21059420/boeing-employees-messages-737-max-investigation-simulator-crash https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21059420/boeing-employees-...
- ejolto 7y ago
  The Washington Post has them https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/boeing-documents-reveal-internal-communication-among-employees-about-737-concerns-f-a-a/ad2f371a-8f0c-4615-9c08-2bd2c5e536b2/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/boeing-documents-reve...
  - swebs 7y ago
    Wow, that email at the bottom of page 109 sounds particularly bad.
  - jannes 7y ago
    Direct link to PDF: https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/4a7b7481-6aa0-4821-bb23-39944c5df948/note/af453341-bce7-40e0-8da3-1a6afcbbd61f.pdf https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...
antpls 7y ago
Other quote from the reuters article (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by-clowns-boeing-releases-internal-messages-that-disparage-737-max-regulators-idUSKBN1Z902N?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by...) : “I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to MAX,” Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot said in a March 2017 email. “Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”
- markdown 7y ago
  > Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot He's one who really needs to go to jail. Why didn't they name him?
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Because Boeing is a company of national importance and also a monopoly on home turf, vital to the US security and economy so they're untouchable in the US. Just like how no VW employee went to jail in Germany for emissions cheating.
    - dawnerd 7y ago
      Also a good way to turn an employee willing to do terrible things into a whistle blower.
    - cedivad 7y ago
      VW wasn't nearly as bad. People need to go to jail over those deaths and their legacy used as a reminder for those that come next. Here is another damning Boeing message, follow the source for more: https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1215558552229683200 https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1215558552229683200
      - FooHentai 7y ago
        As bad by what metric? VWs emissions overshoot has been projected to cause 1200 deaths: http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deaths-europe-0303 http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deat...
CaptainZapp 7y ago
With that pustule breaking up, releasing more and more of that really evil, stinking and ugly slime I start to wonder if that plane goes into service ever again. Maybe the FAA will yield to poltical pressure. But I can't imagine any other certification agency accepting responsibility for any accident occurring on their watch now that more and more about the ugly, incompetent, fraudulent and outright evil engineering process for that death trap comes to light. A plane only certified by the FAA is essentially dead.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  It’s like a 49 state emissions car or a Mexican market auto. Maybe the Third World will take it.
theprop 7y ago
The McDonnell Douglas leadership seems to have put business ahead of engineering (and safety) at Boeing (from other pieces I've read). There are at present just two manufacturers of big planes in the world (China may have a third soon I believe) so it would be terrible for airline safety/efficiency if Boeing did go bankrupt (which is still unlikely) and left just one company with no competition. I think what we should all hope for is a return to Boeing's engineering-centered roots. There are tens of thousands of people who work hard at Boeing, do incredibly difficult work and take justifiable pride in the amazing planes they build. It's a shame that some bad leadership has led to these tragically avoidable crashes. As disturbing and infuriating as these messages are, I believe Boeing if it is once again engineer-lead can get back to strong form and that's what we should all hope for.
- eldelshell 7y ago
  Basically, aircrafts manufacturing is a duopoly: Airbus & Boeing. Isn't there enought market for these two as to not having to cut costs anywhere and airlines pony up with whatever price they set? I know we're talking big numbers here, but come on, Airbus can't produce enough aircrafts to satisfy 100% of the market, so why obsess with cost cutting in such ridiculous things like avionics or simulators?
  - forgetfulusr 7y ago
    It may be Exec culture or just culture in general. We all want to be successful/ better than the competiton. It attracts/feeds our narcissism and eventually gets buried by people who only optimize for profit, success on paper. Can't we replace the finance folks with software yet? It seems that should be the easiest to automate. They can see it, but of course they are closest to the money, and can't let go.
- windthrown 7y ago
  >The McDonnell Douglas leadership seems to have put business ahead of engineering (and safety) at Boeing (from other pieces I've read) The merger happened 22+ years ago. When will you start considering the “new” Boeing company to be responsible for their current actions? It’s 2020 and the problems at Boeing are the fault of Boeing, not McDonnell Douglas.
cm2187 7y ago
I must say that seeing the SEC’s handling of internal emails in the Tourre affair taught me a lesson about internal corporate communications. Some personal emails which were unrelated to the affair were published in the SEC report (clearly for the benefit of the front page of newspapers). The extract contained jokes where the sentence had been edited to alter the meaning of the sentence. The published extract was “whole building is about to collapse anytime now. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab […] standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications” Out of memory the […] that was left out by the SEC said something like “as kindly calls me xxx, but there is nothing fabulous about me, just a tender... etc”. And that was an email to his girlfriend, nothing to do with any transaction. Morale of the story: no jokes, even innocuous, they will be weaponised against you in bad faith. Stick to boring, neutral language. And no personal communications on corporate systems. Write everything on the assumption it will be published with bad intent.
- rusk 7y ago
  It amazes me in this day and age that people don't realise that anything they say on these systems can be dug out and read by anybody, anywhere at any time ...
  - chopin 7y ago
    You're not thinking about this with every keystroke even if you know this. I certainly don't.
    - rusk 7y ago
      I absolutely do. If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office. The only way you'll ever know what I actually really think about something controversial is if you ask me face to face, or maybe, on a phone call.
      - chopin 7y ago
        > If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office. I do this, too. I would call this good manners. But that's wildly different from being aware that the contents might be used in discovery or being published out-of-context. Especially the latter provokes the Richelieu citation.
sudoaza 7y ago
I'd like to know what they say internally about other Boeing planes.
makomk 7y ago
If anyone is reading the original messages, this might provide some context for the comments mocking the competence and training of the FTC's AEG: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/senate-committee-opens-737-max-probe-over-whistle-blower-complaints-about-faa-inspectors-training/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/senat... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/faa-misled-congress-on-inspector-training-for-boeing-737-max-investigators-say/2019/09/23/05e9f986-de08-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/faa...
irenedowd 7y ago
Hi. I ran over a generally excellent Hacker Goatse Security. They have assisted with a ton of issues like Phone Hack, Account Hack, Clear Debts, Grade overhaul E.t.c Contact: goatsesecure (at) gmail Text/Whatsapp: +1 646 389 4585
slumdev 7y ago
If it's not Airbus, I'm not going.
- HappySweeney 7y ago
  While I agree with this sentiment, buying tickets specifying Airbus, and having the airline switch them to Boeing one week before travel time (as happened to me this holiday season) means I wouldn't be able to do any long distance travel. Is there a way to mitigate this?
  - slumdev 7y ago
    On AA, for example, you can improve your odds of getting an Airbus aircraft if you route through a former US Airways hub (e.g. CLT). You might find similar patterns for other carriers if you search by city pairs. Equipment swaps are pretty unusual for international routes, too, because it's harder to reaccommodate people. I think you were unlucky and shouldn't expect that in the future.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    Fly a carrier that uses Airbus exclusively, such as Spirit or JetBlue.
bookofjoe 7y ago
http://archive.is/9fEvf http://archive.is/9fEvf
jordache 7y ago
scrap all those planes.. F-ing Boeing
supernova87a 7y ago
Sounds like Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani might be a good candidates for a new management roles at Boeing!
avionicsguy 7y ago
I worked with Boeing during the 00's. It's when they started outsourcing everything including IT. Holy shit this goes deeper than I thought and some people are heavily cleaning Wikipedia. Didn't even know about this bit stealing rocket tech.: https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2003/branchCharge.htm https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re... Also check out: Darleen Druyun https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-probe-intensifies-over-secret-lockheed-papers/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-probe-intensifi... Phil Condit was ousted over Darleen and that's why Harry was brought in... although the Wikipedia page doesn't mention any of this...fu wikipedia. He was not "retired" he was forced out and Boeing was banned from Space Contracts for 5 years. Damn I wish I save all those news articles. Whoever said the Internet is forever is wrong! The Internet is fickle ...some things will be memes forever and others will be forgotten. And here's what happened to Harry Stonecipher: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111019724886272076 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111019724886272076 So much for "cleaning" up the company culture. F Boeing. The company not the engineers. I also know some very talented people there. [Edit Note:1] The WSJ link should not be paywalled as it's an old article...at least it wasn't for me. [Edit Note:2] The WSJ link is very detailed about what went down if it ends up blocked/paywalled I will...f'ck it I will edit wikipedia....grrrrr history is not fickle and Condit was and is an ass.
adev_ 7y ago
>The monkeys will ruthlessly suppress any evidence Yeah, I would even say that from the following part "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." The Monkey will fire the clown, while still being employed and probably not being hold responsible for the shit they have done. Management liability at its best.

380 points by jfaat 7y ago

Any internal correspondence can become public information in a disclosure proces. ~ first rule of corporate communications

Pxtl 7y ago
Yup. Talk as much crap as you want in person, but what goes in email and web messages and pull-requests and code comments must be immaculate.
- deleted 7y ago
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- deleted 7y ago
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- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Why? I’ve ragged on my employers in DMs, and will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs. Providing my opinions in such channels is part of what I’m paid to do. If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, manages to majorly mess something up, and my comments come back to haunt them, why is that my problem?
  - solatic 7y ago
    Because openness and transparency requires emotional security as a prerequisite. Surveillance and transparency are not the same thing. If you subject people to an all-seeing eye, people will default to covering their asses, and you will not get the information you seek. Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. You will get "my biggest weakness is that I care too much"-type deflective responses at best and a cold shoulder at worst. In companies, a culture with emotional security is built first in private one-on-one meetings and spread from there - it never originates in a public (public within the company at least) setting.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      I’m not sure how this relates to what I asked at all. If something I said at work gets leaked to the public or a regulator, that makes my employer look bad, why should I worry about that? That sounds a lot more like their problem than mine. > Attempting to force people to be vulnerable by unilaterally being open about your own vulnerabilities is manipulative. This comment makes no sense to me. Aside from not relating to what I said, I cannot possibly see how being open and honest is forcing anybody else to do anything. Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job. Ironically, the only people who have ever had a problem with it are middle managers trying to cover up after themselves, and incompetent people that were somehow promoted to technical leadership roles they had no business being in. People I have no problems upsetting.
      - solatic 7y ago
        > Personally I speak my mind wherever I work, and if my employer doesn’t like that, I’m more than happy to find a new job. This is more or less my point. If your employer was happy with it, then your employer was the kind of employer attempting to build a transparent organization (and worked to build emotional security etc.). If your employer wasn't happy with it, then you and your employer have different opinions on the importance of transparency, which points to a cultural mismatch, which points in the direction of parting ways. The key insight is understanding that it's the employer, not the employee, who have both the responsibility and the power to set culture and direction. So if the employer decides not to work on building transparency into the culture, the employer will get an opaque culture as a result. Maybe this results in the kind of problems that Boeing is suffering from now, maybe it results in bankruptcy, maybe not. The employer is responsible and accountable to decide. The employee's decision is much simpler - adapt or leave. Most people decide to adapt; the potential upside to leaving is a murky gamble taken on faith, particularly if people don't have a specific offer lined up at a specific place that seems to be a better fit for specific reasons. So it shouldn't be a surprise to you that employers get what they (intentionally or unintentionally) incentivize.
    - craftinator 7y ago
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    > why is that my problem? This kind of attitude is the problem. You’re supposed to be working together toward the same goal. As a team. A team of “not my problem” people who are working only towards their own individual goals (or worse, CYA) is the most toxic team that can exist.
    - comex 7y ago
      The beginning of the sentence: > If my employer doesn’t heed my advice, I think the OP’s assumption – or at least hope – is that if they identify a problem so severe that disclosure would be a serious liability, then their employer will heed their advice, and fix it. The shared goal is producing quality results, not covering anyone’s ass (either OP’s or their employer’s) when they don’t.
    - CheesecakeFred 7y ago
      I think you missed the point, "will often express very blunt concerns about quality/risks in emails or PRs" means he straight up communicates any issue without sugar-coating. Which is what you want from a conscious employee. If despite that someone higher up in the decision chain ignores the issue (in the case of safety risks, that is criminal negligence), to continue to fight this battle is pointless and would only mean risking one's career for nothing.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        I think there's a fine line between communicating without sugar-coating and speaking past one's own local knowledge of a problem that a lot of engineers don't recognize.
        AmericanChopper 7y ago
        There’s plenty of ways that an IC can misconstrue managers not acting on their advice, and usually they come down to a lack of understanding the organisation, or immaturity. Having learnt a lot of those lessons the hard way throughout my career, I’d like to think I usually don’t fall into those traps. The most common one I’d say is when an IC thinks whatever they’re concerned about is much more important than the organisation thinks it is. In such a situation, as long as I’ve communicated my concerns to the right people, I never have any bitterness about an organisation accepting risks I’ve raised after proper analysis (unless of course, it has some impact, and then they start politically back pedalling the risk acceptance). Personally, due to the nature of my work, I am often brought in to contribute to projects that are either well under way, or nearing completion. I will often find things that I think are risks or other issues at this stage. Any time this happens, there’s a whole bunch of things that could explain what I’ve found. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake in my assessment, perhaps there’s some mitigation (planned or otherwise) that I’m not aware of, perhaps they already know about it and have accepted it, perhaps there’s some major constraint I don’t know about... So I ask around and try find out if there are any easy answers. If not, then I’ll escalate it to other stakeholders. Usually phrased something like “I’ve noticed this, I think it’s an issue for these reasons, and could potentially cause such-and-such an impact”, sometimes with “I’d suggest we consider this alternative approach” and potentially “I’d recommend delaying delivery of this project to address these concerns if necessary”. Even at this stage, I don’t know all the facts, so I simply express my thoughts without claiming to have any definitive conclusions, and trying my best to qualify them with where I believe the limits of my knowledge/understanding are. In a well run organisation, this will result in my concerns being proven either founded or unfounded, previously known or previously unknown, and some sort of action could result (even if that’s only risk acceptance, further investigation, or plans for future mitigation). In a dysfunctional organisation, my concerns will either be dismissed off the bat, or pointlessly argued about by political actors. In my experience the latter reaction will usually come from incompetent management trying to conceals their failures, or incompetent contractors trying to defend their billable work. In the first case I’ll just make plans to leave the organisation. In the latter case I don’t really care. I’m a contractor myself, so my job is to deliver value to the employer (who would usually be happy with me in such a situation), I’m not particularly concerned about whether my work satisfies other contractors in that respect.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    They can come back to haunt them, come back to haunt you, and come back to haunt people you like at your company who get caught in the blast radius if your words are misinterpreted. Because when written material is disclosed and published, the person who made the original on-a-record statement doesn't usually get to testify as to what they meant, and your words will be interpreted by a litigious party hostile to the interests of your company, and sometimes by the public (after having their expectations primed by the litigious party hostile to the interests of your company). If you believe that your "ragging on your employers" can stand that level of scrutiny, then by all means, commit them to writing.
- perlgeek 7y ago
  Even in person, you shouldn't talk crap all the time. It creates a toxic culture.
  - honestoHeminway 7y ago
    I have companys talking good things about themselve all the time. Its like a PR-Talkshow. The tech is rotten to the core, and its constantly failing - resulting in massive tech debt. Words are like money, if you print them with no backing up value, you might aswell save the paper. The design of the backnotes does little to the value. But if you print "Why mar currency? Cause we can." on the notes, the customers might appreciate the honesty, and give you back a little of another currency that is trust. I do not trust any company talk anymore at all. So print all the money you want, but you cant buy anything in my shop, thank you.
- MaxfordAndSons 7y ago
  Heh, this reminds me: at a former employer, the eng team communicated exclusively by IRC (when Slack was already a thing) specifically because the CTO had previously experienced his communications being picked apart and taken out of context when his old company had ended up in the scope of a congressional investigation. So that's one way around it...
  - auiya 7y ago
    If it's being logged, it's subject to the discovery process, regardless of what protocol you're using.
dehrmann 7y ago
I completely agree, but I'm pretty sympathetic to the employees. I've worked enough and made enough jokes at work that I don't give much credence to them. At a lot of places I've worked, people internally often viewed the infrastructure as shit, even when it's well-received by users. I think it's part cynicism, and part that so much time goes to fixing bugs, when all you see is that bad part of something, it colors your judgement.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

Geez. > "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't," says one employee to another, who responds, "No." > Peter DeFazio, [D-Oregon], called newly released documents "incredibly damning" That's hard to argue with. You'd like to think this kind of thing would... leak. Who said conspiracies involving hundreds of people are impossible?

wyxuan 7y ago
Blow your whistle all you want but until something catastrophic happens, the whistleblowers would turn out the way the whistleblowers for the 737ng airframe cracking came out: fired and then ignored.
- panarky 7y ago
  "This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys." The monkeys will ruthlessly suppress any evidence that they are monkeys or that they supervise clowns.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Whistle-blowing is misunderstood. You can't just start leaking internal documents and making accusations without evidence. ...that will get you fired, and possibly in jail. You need to talk to a lawyer, follow the legal process, and make allegations that you can PROVE. So many whistle-blowers come out with wild stories (often true), but since they bring zero evidence to the table they are ignored. ...and if they have evidence, they just blindly leak it to the press without going through the process, which can endanger people/privacy and destroy IP. Don't get me wrong - whistleblowers are important, but if you really want to make positive change and not just stick it to your employer - do it responsibly.
  - Scene_Cast2 7y ago
    It feels like the problem is cultural. If the culture doesn't allow enough time for confidence in deliverables, then what proof would you have? Often there are a million items that can go wrong (although all tests pass). So probabilistically something is wrong, but there's no solid item to latch on to.

stretchwithme 7y ago

Oh, no. People thinking thoughts and expressing them. Oh, my!

playeren 7y ago

> The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." Do you think this means: a) Change the environment that fosters those kinds of messages? -or- b) Punish those who wrote those messages?

dannyw 7y ago
Boeing is saying the language used and sentiments expressed are bad. They're not saying that releasing a plane that employees were sounding safety alarms are about is bad.
- a1369209993 7y ago
  This. Exactly this. They are literally saying: > [Sounding safety alarms is] inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate [ie punitive] action in response [to prevent any alarms on the next unsafe design].
  - smcl 7y ago
    Boeing were dangerously incompetent w.r.t the 777 MAX, but I have to disagree here - this isn't about putting down whistleblowing or dissenting opinions. What they're saying is they are gonna slap some people on the wrist and issue company wide memo saying something to the effect of "Please don't say stupid embarrassing stuff like this in the company chat or over email". However we are in agreement that this isn't a commitment to fix any of underlying issues that caused this mess.
    - a1369209993 7y ago
      > slap some people on the wrist and issue company wide memo saying something to the effect of "Please don't say stupid embarrassing stuff like this in the company chat or over email". While that's on the low end of the range of severity I'd expect, I can't help but point out that that is, in fact, punitive action and would, in fact, discourage (albeit probably not prevent) any warnings about the next unsafe design.

bikeshed 7y ago

Cool how Boeing's response appears to be to find and punish those responsible for the communications, not those responsible for deceiving the FAA and regulators in order to certify an aircraft that never should have left the design phase.

tw04 7y ago

My favorite quote: >The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." Values? Your values appear to be maximizing profits at the expense of human lives. Your response to: "the guys developing our simulator were emailing back and forth they'd never fly on this plane" shouldn't be - let's fire them. It should be: how did management fail SO HORRENDOUSLY that the feedback from these testers wasn't pushed up the chain so we could build a reliable product? The fact that we're this far removed from the accidents and they still don't get it tells me the company probably needs to just fail.

ryanisnan 7y ago
I completely agree. It's a great example that they are still incapable of owning their mistakes, and cannot be trusted without a significant dressing down. Let them fail.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Except American interests will trump all so they'll play as dirty as they need against Airbus and kill Canadian aerospace in the process.
notJim 7y ago
This seems right to me. I think most of us have been in situations where we've commiserated with coworkers about a problem that we felt was beyond us to fix, because it's coming from the top. Either management is actively refusing to invest in the necessary changes, or they're creating an environment where it's not even safe to bring those problems to light. And even worse, a culture where it's normalized that there are unfixable problems, such that employees barely even remark on them.

tus88 7y ago

This is shocking. Said by a cynic.

blaisio 7y ago

I think this is a reminder - do not say or do inappropriate things using company resources (chat, email, VPN, etc). Don't complain about co-workers, don't joke about breaking the law, don't say or do anything rude or disrespectful. You'll get about 5 seconds of happiness from a joke that can ruin your career.

freepor 7y ago
That’s what you took away from this?
TrueDuality 7y ago
I'd blunt that with: It is still appropriate for you to respectfully raise concerns with coworkers, management, etc using company resources. That especially includes if you suspect something may actually be illegal, in violation of a contract etc. Basic human decency and ethics aside, getting fired is still better than going to jail as a scape goat.
ShorsHammer 7y ago
> You'll get about 5 seconds of happiness from a joke that can ruin your career. And your coworkers may gain enough courage to actually stand up publicly against what they all say in private. What a horrendously self-interested take on this whole saga.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sitkack 7y ago
Boeing might be just the place for you.

boardwaalk 7y ago

The cost (not just money) of this to Boeing needs to be way, way more than the cost of the additional training/certification/better sensors and software or whatever would have been needed to do this right to begin with. We can’t let this to come down to a cynical “what’s the cost of a life?”-style calculation. It needs to be much more consequential relative to the crime/incompetence than Equifax, Facebook, etc.

linsomniac 7y ago

"this airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys" In the moment, I would imagine this comes across as sour grapes. With the benefit of hindsight, that sentiment seems to hold some water.

mzs 7y ago
It's about how bad the flight management computer is, the ridiculously short testing timeline, and how it is likely to never be fixed: https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1215475933966192640 https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/12154759339661926...
Traster 7y ago
That comment leapt out to me to. I would wager that the same sentiment has been expressed about any sufficiently large project whether it's successful or not. There's always going to be someone in a company who thinks someone else is an idiot.

btmorex 7y ago

I think the only thing that can actually fix Boeing is bankruptcy, so I hope that people refuse to fly on the Max even after recertification and it ends up being too big of a financial blow to recover from.

oska 7y ago
I agree. I'll be boycotting the Max just on principle, regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. I'm hoping (and kind of expecting) that people will build simple apps or websites to check whether an advertised flight is on a 737 Max. It should be quite easy for people to avoid/boycott this plane.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > regardless of what extra safety measures are implemented to get it re-certified. To be fair, after this the Max is likely to be one of the most intensively studied and prepped planes in existence for pilots who might have to fly one. Pilots don't want to die either.
  - tigershark 7y ago
    How can all the study and preparation of a pilot help in a catastrophic mechanical failure caused by some likely design flaw that still is not apparent?
    - int_hdlr 7y ago
      I think it's very apparent by now.
    - joking 7y ago
      The design of individual components is quite tested and actually most of them have a long history of performance as they have been in use for a long time. On the other hand, I'm not confident on the design and integration of those components in the whole package.
- 7y ago

djabatt 7y ago

This sort of stuff makes me freak out when I find out I am flying on a Boeing product. I expect people that are making aircraft to be better than when this NPR reporting purports.

zxienin 7y ago
It’s panicking thought to assume that similar culture and malice doesn’t exist at Airbus, just because they haven’t had their public 737 MAX event yet.

rurp 7y ago

Wow, this article is full of amazing quotes. I highly recommend reading the entire thing. My favorite one I haven't seen posted yet > "I still haven't been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year," one employee says in 2018, referring to an exchange of information with the FAA. Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently.

aguyfromnb 7y ago
>Utterly unbelievable, yet also totally unsurprising given everything else that's come out about Boeing recently. What amazes me is that the same thing is happening with Tesla, but HN hardly bats an eye, because Silicon Valley: https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-push-to-build-a-self-driving-car-sparks-dissent-among-its-engineers-1503593742 https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-push-to-build-a-self-dri... Engineers speaking up and getting fired or resigning. What's worse is that, as opposed to having a choice to fly on a 737 MAX, driving on autopilot on public roads puts other people at risk.
- elcomet 7y ago
  But a car involves far less people than a plane.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  There is a very fundamental difference. The Tesla autopilot is a mere driving assist system. Like with plain cruise control, the driver is still fully in charge and needs to pay enough attention to take over at any moment. All accidents happened because drivers were not paying attention at all. With the Boeing, the MCAS system put the 737 in a flight state which trained pilots couldn't recover from.
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    >The Tesla autopilot is a mere driving assist system. Yes, when you follow ambiguous instructions, which contradict things like, "Only waiting for regulatory approval!", or"1 million robotaxis this year!" or "Cars can drive by themselves coast-to-coast!"

forwhomst 7y ago

I've worked at companies where I had to take annual hour-long training sessions about not saying stuff like this in discoverable communications.

blululu 7y ago

Someone once gave the sage advice of never using the word 'kill' in your code base. 'm_Object.KillListeners();' can sound pretty bad in court. A lawyer can try to make your source code a legal matter, and a jury is free to interpret 'm_Object.KillChildren();' as being proof of willful negligence. Of course, this doesn't really matter when you're actually exposing willful negligence over your internal communication channels.

jacquesm 7y ago
> man kill KILL(1) User Commands KILL(1) NAME kill - send a signal to a process SYNOPSIS kill [options] <pid> [...] Probably not a unix user then?
- tirpen 7y ago
  That's exactly his/her point. To a techie it's obvious what it means, but if the code runs on some hardware that ends up killing people for real and the code gets inspected during discovery, having words like that could be a liability since jurors are less likely to understand the technical meaning. I worked in the automotive industry for a few years, we where told not to use the terms "crash","kill","die" and a few others anywhere in code or documentation for exactly this reason.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  Opposing counsel doesn't care and nobody on the jury will be a Unix user. So ...

noodlesUK 7y ago

'The company official said the language used and sentiments expressed in these communications "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response."' The company is taking action in response. Against its employees. Not the ones responsible for killing hundreds of people, but the ones who were calling the program out on its flaws that led to those deaths? If I were working on a safety critical program and I thought it was risking lives I'd lose my shit. The employees that said this should be getting an "I told you so" badge, and the executive team should be going to prison. Fuck Boeing for this.

dgzl 7y ago
That's just not how massive companies work. Sometimes the leaf-level employee knows a secret to improve the entire system in significant ways, but they'll never be heard. Sometimes the root employee (we'll say CEO) catches a earful from any given section of their company they don't like, regardless of how accepted or pervasive it the sentiment is, and that employee could be picked from the tree. It's just how it works in a massive structure. Someone at one end thinks the values and ethic is one way, and the people at the other end have an entirely different understanding.
- noodlesUK 7y ago
  There’s a difference between knowing something that would improve a system and knowing that there are specific flaws with a significant degree of lethality. It should be acceptable to miss someone telling you the first (if perhaps a missed opportunity), but it’s negligent to miss the second. It sounds to me that these people were taken aback and appalled by the cavalier attitude towards safety. If you have a decent number of professionals telling you something is unsafe and you ignore their cries, and then you kill people, you’ve fucked up in a big way. Edit: more to my original point though, the response should be to improve internal processes to prevent this kind of tragedy again, rather than to throw the people doing the right thing by speaking up under the bus, saying it’s against company culture to call out dangerous risks.
  - 7y ago

farseer 7y ago

>>The language used in these communications, and some of the sentiments they express, are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response. This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed. And that my friends is all that you need to know about the boeing of 2020.

auiya 7y ago
About a year ago, I was considering investing in Boeing. I would have made a good chunk of change doing so. I'm glad today I decided not to.

jacquesm 7y ago

It's interesting that Boeing apparently has a bigger issue with the language used than with the culture that fostered these communications in the first place. That is one sick company, trying hard to pretend it was a sick company.

rs23296008n1 7y ago

From the rpr article, "This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys" This says a lot about Boeing's internals / culture. Probably their subcontractor interaction quality as well. While we can't take one comment in isolation it is a relevant indicator. Its telling there were no[?] whistleblowers able to come forward beforehand. Consequences are too real and the search for the guilty talkers likely continues and I don't even think they were even remotely whistleblowers. Perhaps technical prowess isn't as highly respected as it should be? Too many corners cut? Excessive priority of business over engineering? Timelines too tight? Budgets too small? Misallocations? Don't know. Lots of symptoms of an unhealthy organization. It will become an interesting case-study regardless.

swebs 7y ago

Does anyone know where we can read the actual documents? This article is missing a lot of information.

cdowns 7y ago
This article has them: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21059420/boeing-employees-messages-737-max-investigation-simulator-crash https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21059420/boeing-employees-...
ejolto 7y ago
The Washington Post has them https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/boeing-documents-reveal-internal-communication-among-employees-about-737-concerns-f-a-a/ad2f371a-8f0c-4615-9c08-2bd2c5e536b2/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/boeing-documents-reve...
- swebs 7y ago
  Wow, that email at the bottom of page 109 sounds particularly bad.
- jannes 7y ago
  Direct link to PDF: https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/4a7b7481-6aa0-4821-bb23-39944c5df948/note/af453341-bce7-40e0-8da3-1a6afcbbd61f.pdf https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do...

antpls 7y ago

Other quote from the reuters article (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by-clowns-boeing-releases-internal-messages-that-disparage-737-max-regulators-idUSKBN1Z902N?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by...) : “I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to MAX,” Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot said in a March 2017 email. “Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

markdown 7y ago
> Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot He's one who really needs to go to jail. Why didn't they name him?
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Because Boeing is a company of national importance and also a monopoly on home turf, vital to the US security and economy so they're untouchable in the US. Just like how no VW employee went to jail in Germany for emissions cheating.
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    Also a good way to turn an employee willing to do terrible things into a whistle blower.
  - cedivad 7y ago
    VW wasn't nearly as bad. People need to go to jail over those deaths and their legacy used as a reminder for those that come next. Here is another damning Boeing message, follow the source for more: https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1215558552229683200 https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1215558552229683200
    - FooHentai 7y ago
      As bad by what metric? VWs emissions overshoot has been projected to cause 1200 deaths: http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deaths-europe-0303 http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deat...

CaptainZapp 7y ago

With that pustule breaking up, releasing more and more of that really evil, stinking and ugly slime I start to wonder if that plane goes into service ever again. Maybe the FAA will yield to poltical pressure. But I can't imagine any other certification agency accepting responsibility for any accident occurring on their watch now that more and more about the ugly, incompetent, fraudulent and outright evil engineering process for that death trap comes to light. A plane only certified by the FAA is essentially dead.

selimthegrim 7y ago
It’s like a 49 state emissions car or a Mexican market auto. Maybe the Third World will take it.

theprop 7y ago

The McDonnell Douglas leadership seems to have put business ahead of engineering (and safety) at Boeing (from other pieces I've read). There are at present just two manufacturers of big planes in the world (China may have a third soon I believe) so it would be terrible for airline safety/efficiency if Boeing did go bankrupt (which is still unlikely) and left just one company with no competition. I think what we should all hope for is a return to Boeing's engineering-centered roots. There are tens of thousands of people who work hard at Boeing, do incredibly difficult work and take justifiable pride in the amazing planes they build. It's a shame that some bad leadership has led to these tragically avoidable crashes. As disturbing and infuriating as these messages are, I believe Boeing if it is once again engineer-lead can get back to strong form and that's what we should all hope for.

eldelshell 7y ago
Basically, aircrafts manufacturing is a duopoly: Airbus & Boeing. Isn't there enought market for these two as to not having to cut costs anywhere and airlines pony up with whatever price they set? I know we're talking big numbers here, but come on, Airbus can't produce enough aircrafts to satisfy 100% of the market, so why obsess with cost cutting in such ridiculous things like avionics or simulators?
- forgetfulusr 7y ago
  It may be Exec culture or just culture in general. We all want to be successful/ better than the competiton. It attracts/feeds our narcissism and eventually gets buried by people who only optimize for profit, success on paper. Can't we replace the finance folks with software yet? It seems that should be the easiest to automate. They can see it, but of course they are closest to the money, and can't let go.
windthrown 7y ago
>The McDonnell Douglas leadership seems to have put business ahead of engineering (and safety) at Boeing (from other pieces I've read) The merger happened 22+ years ago. When will you start considering the “new” Boeing company to be responsible for their current actions? It’s 2020 and the problems at Boeing are the fault of Boeing, not McDonnell Douglas.

cm2187 7y ago

I must say that seeing the SEC’s handling of internal emails in the Tourre affair taught me a lesson about internal corporate communications. Some personal emails which were unrelated to the affair were published in the SEC report (clearly for the benefit of the front page of newspapers). The extract contained jokes where the sentence had been edited to alter the meaning of the sentence. The published extract was “whole building is about to collapse anytime now. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab […] standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications” Out of memory the […] that was left out by the SEC said something like “as kindly calls me xxx, but there is nothing fabulous about me, just a tender... etc”. And that was an email to his girlfriend, nothing to do with any transaction. Morale of the story: no jokes, even innocuous, they will be weaponised against you in bad faith. Stick to boring, neutral language. And no personal communications on corporate systems. Write everything on the assumption it will be published with bad intent.

rusk 7y ago
It amazes me in this day and age that people don't realise that anything they say on these systems can be dug out and read by anybody, anywhere at any time ...
- chopin 7y ago
  You're not thinking about this with every keystroke even if you know this. I certainly don't.
  - rusk 7y ago
    I absolutely do. If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office. The only way you'll ever know what I actually really think about something controversial is if you ask me face to face, or maybe, on a phone call.
    - chopin 7y ago
      > If I'm typing it I'm checking myself just as if I were speaking across an open plan office. I do this, too. I would call this good manners. But that's wildly different from being aware that the contents might be used in discovery or being published out-of-context. Especially the latter provokes the Richelieu citation.

sudoaza 7y ago

I'd like to know what they say internally about other Boeing planes.

makomk 7y ago

If anyone is reading the original messages, this might provide some context for the comments mocking the competence and training of the FTC's AEG: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/senate-committee-opens-737-max-probe-over-whistle-blower-complaints-about-faa-inspectors-training/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/senat... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/faa-misled-congress-on-inspector-training-for-boeing-737-max-investigators-say/2019/09/23/05e9f986-de08-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/faa...

irenedowd 7y ago

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slumdev 7y ago

If it's not Airbus, I'm not going.

HappySweeney 7y ago
While I agree with this sentiment, buying tickets specifying Airbus, and having the airline switch them to Boeing one week before travel time (as happened to me this holiday season) means I wouldn't be able to do any long distance travel. Is there a way to mitigate this?
- slumdev 7y ago
  On AA, for example, you can improve your odds of getting an Airbus aircraft if you route through a former US Airways hub (e.g. CLT). You might find similar patterns for other carriers if you search by city pairs. Equipment swaps are pretty unusual for international routes, too, because it's harder to reaccommodate people. I think you were unlucky and shouldn't expect that in the future.
- amyjess 7y ago
  Fly a carrier that uses Airbus exclusively, such as Spirit or JetBlue.

bookofjoe 7y ago

http://archive.is/9fEvf http://archive.is/9fEvf

jordache 7y ago

scrap all those planes.. F-ing Boeing

supernova87a 7y ago

Sounds like Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani might be a good candidates for a new management roles at Boeing!

avionicsguy 7y ago

I worked with Boeing during the 00's. It's when they started outsourcing everything including IT. Holy shit this goes deeper than I thought and some people are heavily cleaning Wikipedia. Didn't even know about this bit stealing rocket tech.: https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2003/branchCharge.htm https://www.justice.gov/archive/criminal/cybercrime/press-re... Also check out: Darleen Druyun https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-probe-intensifies-over-secret-lockheed-papers/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-probe-intensifi... Phil Condit was ousted over Darleen and that's why Harry was brought in... although the Wikipedia page doesn't mention any of this...fu wikipedia. He was not "retired" he was forced out and Boeing was banned from Space Contracts for 5 years. Damn I wish I save all those news articles. Whoever said the Internet is forever is wrong! The Internet is fickle ...some things will be memes forever and others will be forgotten. And here's what happened to Harry Stonecipher: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111019724886272076 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111019724886272076 So much for "cleaning" up the company culture. F Boeing. The company not the engineers. I also know some very talented people there. [Edit Note:1] The WSJ link should not be paywalled as it's an old article...at least it wasn't for me. [Edit Note:2] The WSJ link is very detailed about what went down if it ends up blocked/paywalled I will...f'ck it I will edit wikipedia....grrrrr history is not fickle and Condit was and is an ass.

adev_ 7y ago

>The monkeys will ruthlessly suppress any evidence Yeah, I would even say that from the following part "are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response." The Monkey will fire the clown, while still being employed and probably not being hold responsible for the shit they have done. Management liability at its best.