6 ms·

> do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? First you very carefully selected wha

> do many republicans hold the view that killing 346 people in the first year of service is acceptable business practice? First you very carefully selected what to quote. You cut out this part: > A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business. Then you suggest the republicans not being ok with the investigation findings means they are ok with killing people. They do not agree with WHY and HOW these people got killed, obviously not disagree that this should have not happened. How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me.

JshWright 6y ago
I don't think the parent comment misrepresented anything at all. Even without reading the article yet, I assumed "our system" referred to the government's system (i.e. the FAA's process). It takes some pretty significant mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the FAA's approval process wasn't critically flawed in the case of the MAX.
- cmurf 6y ago
  The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it. The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself. If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.
TheHypnotist 6y ago
I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken. I agree this doesn't exactly equate to the conclusion drawn about republicans, but it does further expose that there is no limit to generating partisan/political quotes where they don't belong. Regardless of who you side with, note that many on the congressional investigative team took contributions from Boeing and tried to steer blame to individual pilots/airlines (including Sam Graves and some democrats). Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead-pilots-brought-to-you-by-boeing/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...
- nickff 6y ago
  >" I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken." That's quite the assumption. I don't even know what 'broken' would mean for a certification process as byzantine as the one used by the FAA. I think you should either be more specific, or take the time to learn a bit about the systems, processes, and failure modes of complex multi-stakeholder processes.
  - TheHypnotist 6y ago
    Let's make this easy, a fully FAA compliant aircraft fell from the sky, twice. Therefore, the certification process is broken, as in it does not actually work at judging the airworthiness of a new jet due the reason in the previous sentence.
mannykannot 6y ago
> Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business. Yes, but for me, regulatory capture seems to be a central issue in what went wrong, so I am highly skeptical that this is not an ideologically-flavored conclusion. FWIW, I first approached this incident (prior to the second crash) from the point of view that it was probably either pilot error and/or an unfortunate malfunction, so I think I can fairly say that I have come to my conclusions in a forwards direction.
- SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
  > regulatory capture The fact that this is an accepted business practice is insane to me.
  - tremon 6y ago
    I don't think it's necessarily an accepted business practice, but a known failure mode of our regulatory model.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Nobody can come up with an alternative. the only people who are experts in something are people who could be good in either a regulatory role or a business role. Thus there is and always will be a revolving door because when one side decides they need more experts the obvious place to look is the other side of the door. Note that without the revolving door both sides would be worse off. (Unless you take some other action to mitigate this - I can't think of anything but there might be a complex answer)
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Another approach could be sufficently good communication. If you need former experts in writing the regulation to be compliant or need to work in the industry to know how it works enough to regulate it implies that the communication on both sides is missing crucial information. The process of doing so and ensuring it would be very laborious in that you would have to document every last detail, go through and make sure they were covered, make sure they were retained, and make sure that their understanding of every last detail is identical. Making matters worse is the mix of implicit and explicit. If you use a sprocket on something the design implicitly states "Do not allow it to rotate that way!" An added strut on a panel already more than capable of supporting itself and the rest of the structure may be redundant or needed to shift resonant frequencies into a range where they would be irrelevant.
elliekelly 6y ago
How often does an entity, when investigating itself, accurately and truthfully identify the issues the entity is facing? I have immense respect for the FAA and if any regulator could do it I would think the FAA would conduct a more honest self-investigation than most US regulators. But it’s still a pretty dubious proposition that people in Congress responsible for the agency’s oversight would defer to the judgment of the FAA in determining the agency’s accountability. It’s ironically not unlike the regulatory landscape that led to the Boeing situation in the first place - the entity charged with oversight was much too deferential to those it was supposed to be overseeing.
criley2 6y ago
>> A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." This statement alone is hilarious considering that the FAA approval is a poster-child example of regulatory capture. Here's the secret: the FAA let's the companies SELF-REGULATE and SELF-APPROVE planes. The FAA did NOT approve the Max, because Boeing did. >>A total of 79 companies are allowed under federal policies to let engineers or other workers considered qualified report on safety to the FAA on systems deemed not to be the most critical rather than leaving all inspections to the government agency. >>To critics, it's a regulatory blind spot. Once you know how this works, that statement by bad-faith-actor Sam Graves is laid bare. Of course we know how to improve the processes: Step 1: Don't put the Fox in charge of the Hens! >>> How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me." Something you yourself could have learned from before posting!
- TheHypnotist 6y ago
  Bad faith brought to you by Boeing: "Here are the total contributions from Boeing to members of the House Aviation Subcommittee during the 2018 election cycle. Republicans: Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) $0. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) $9,700. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) $5,999. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) $6,000. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) $10,000. John Katko (R-New York) $15,400. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) $0. Brian Mast (R-Florida) $7,681. Paul Mitchell (R-Michigan) $5,000. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) $3,000. David Rouzer (R-North Carolina) $2,000. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania) $8,000. Ross Spano (R-Florida) $0. Pete Stauber (R-Minnesota) $0. Daniel Webster (R-Florida) $0. Rob Woodall (R-Georgia) $2,000. Don Young (R-Alaska) $1,000. Total Boeing Contributions to Republicans on the Aviation Subcommittee $75,780. Average for each of the 17 members: $4,457. Democrats: Colin Allred (D-Texas) $94. Anthony Brown (D-Maryland) $8,500. Julia Brownley (D-California) $0. Salud Carbajal (D-California) $5,000. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) $10,000. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) $2,000. Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) $703. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) $122. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) $5,000. Jesus Garcia (D-Illinois) $0. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) $6,000. Henry Johnson (D-Georgia) $1,000. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) $7,048. Daniel Lipinski (D-Illinois) $6,000. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) $0. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) $3,500. Grace Napolitano (D-Washington) $0. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) $0. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey) $1,000. Stacey Plaskett (D-USVI) $0. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) $2. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) $3,000. Total Amount Boeing contributions to Democrats on the Aviation Subcommittee in 2018 cycle: $58,969. Average for each of the 22 members. $2,680. Total contributed by Boeing to the 39 members of the Subcommittee: $134,749. Average per member: $3,455." Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead-pilots-brought-to-you-by-boeing/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...
cmiles74 6y ago
I disagree that anything was misrepresented. After two airliner crashes I think it is clear that the "system" (in this case the ability of the FAA to provide sufficient oversight to ensure safety of these planes and companies like Boeing to provide the FAA with the information they need) is broken. Wouldn't we all agree that the entire point of this inquiry was to "work backwards from there" and figure out where things could be improved? I'm less clear on what Sam Graves means when he says "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act," but I can see why people would be upset. It seems to me that we don't need input from anyone after two crashed airliners, be they safety experts or not: there clearly are areas in which the FAA's processes can be improved and they should be improved ASAP.
tremon 6y ago
I did not try to misrepresent anything. That first quote I left out because it was standard politician's doublespeak, i.e. not admitting anything nor committing to anything. Yes, my comment was a gut reaction. That reaction was purely based on the gall of calling into question whether the system is broken at all. To formalize my thought process: 1. $system exists to certify machines in $domain (premise) 2. 346 people die in two related $domain failures (premise) 3. $politician rejects the notion that $system is broken (premise) 4. a well-functioning system is apparently allowed to result in 346 deaths (conclusion)
- kortilla 6y ago
  Perhaps you’re just used to dealing with an industry that has little physical risks where the thought of people dying in a normal functioning system seems hard to believe? Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations. It’s regarded as a well-functioning system. Are Democrats fine with thousands of deaths every year?
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    >> Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles But not due to systemic issues like the Toyota unintended accelerations. Deaths arising from systemic issues in automotive manufacture or poor road design are relatively rare in comparison to driver-induced deaths due to e.g. impairment by alcohol. >> and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations It does for (systemic issues - the issues in question this whole conversation)
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      But a lot of the causes of car accidents ARE systemic! "driving while 80 years old" "driving while on 4 hours of sleep in the past 72" "driving with the brake warning light on" I'd count all of the above as "systemic", and bet that they cause a multitude of deaths. We just don't want to accept the societal and monetary cost to eliminate them. Others, like "driving while intoxicated", we penalize but still do not take more than superficial steps to combat. (Superficial from the perspective of aviation, at least)
jasonlotito 6y ago
> "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." Climate experts determined things too. Congress has acted... by ignoring those experts. Why should we expect them to listen this time when they have demonstrated an unwillingness to listen in the past? Judging by history, they aren't planning on acting.

JshWright 6y ago

I don't think the parent comment misrepresented anything at all. Even without reading the article yet, I assumed "our system" referred to the government's system (i.e. the FAA's process). It takes some pretty significant mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the FAA's approval process wasn't critically flawed in the case of the MAX.

cmurf 6y ago
The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it. The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself. If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.

TheHypnotist 6y ago

I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken. I agree this doesn't exactly equate to the conclusion drawn about republicans, but it does further expose that there is no limit to generating partisan/political quotes where they don't belong. Regardless of who you side with, note that many on the congressional investigative team took contributions from Boeing and tried to steer blame to individual pilots/airlines (including Sam Graves and some democrats). Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead-pilots-brought-to-you-by-boeing/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...

nickff 6y ago
>" I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken." That's quite the assumption. I don't even know what 'broken' would mean for a certification process as byzantine as the one used by the FAA. I think you should either be more specific, or take the time to learn a bit about the systems, processes, and failure modes of complex multi-stakeholder processes.
- TheHypnotist 6y ago
  Let's make this easy, a fully FAA compliant aircraft fell from the sky, twice. Therefore, the certification process is broken, as in it does not actually work at judging the airworthiness of a new jet due the reason in the previous sentence.

mannykannot 6y ago

> Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business. Yes, but for me, regulatory capture seems to be a central issue in what went wrong, so I am highly skeptical that this is not an ideologically-flavored conclusion. FWIW, I first approached this incident (prior to the second crash) from the point of view that it was probably either pilot error and/or an unfortunate malfunction, so I think I can fairly say that I have come to my conclusions in a forwards direction.

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
> regulatory capture The fact that this is an accepted business practice is insane to me.
- tremon 6y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily an accepted business practice, but a known failure mode of our regulatory model.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Nobody can come up with an alternative. the only people who are experts in something are people who could be good in either a regulatory role or a business role. Thus there is and always will be a revolving door because when one side decides they need more experts the obvious place to look is the other side of the door. Note that without the revolving door both sides would be worse off. (Unless you take some other action to mitigate this - I can't think of anything but there might be a complex answer)
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Another approach could be sufficently good communication. If you need former experts in writing the regulation to be compliant or need to work in the industry to know how it works enough to regulate it implies that the communication on both sides is missing crucial information. The process of doing so and ensuring it would be very laborious in that you would have to document every last detail, go through and make sure they were covered, make sure they were retained, and make sure that their understanding of every last detail is identical. Making matters worse is the mix of implicit and explicit. If you use a sprocket on something the design implicitly states "Do not allow it to rotate that way!" An added strut on a panel already more than capable of supporting itself and the rest of the structure may be redundant or needed to shift resonant frequencies into a range where they would be irrelevant.

elliekelly 6y ago

How often does an entity, when investigating itself, accurately and truthfully identify the issues the entity is facing? I have immense respect for the FAA and if any regulator could do it I would think the FAA would conduct a more honest self-investigation than most US regulators. But it’s still a pretty dubious proposition that people in Congress responsible for the agency’s oversight would defer to the judgment of the FAA in determining the agency’s accountability. It’s ironically not unlike the regulatory landscape that led to the Boeing situation in the first place - the entity charged with oversight was much too deferential to those it was supposed to be overseeing.

criley2 6y ago

>> A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." This statement alone is hilarious considering that the FAA approval is a poster-child example of regulatory capture. Here's the secret: the FAA let's the companies SELF-REGULATE and SELF-APPROVE planes. The FAA did NOT approve the Max, because Boeing did. >>A total of 79 companies are allowed under federal policies to let engineers or other workers considered qualified report on safety to the FAA on systems deemed not to be the most critical rather than leaving all inspections to the government agency. >>To critics, it's a regulatory blind spot. Once you know how this works, that statement by bad-faith-actor Sam Graves is laid bare. Of course we know how to improve the processes: Step 1: Don't put the Fox in charge of the Hens! >>> How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me." Something you yourself could have learned from before posting!

TheHypnotist 6y ago
Bad faith brought to you by Boeing: "Here are the total contributions from Boeing to members of the House Aviation Subcommittee during the 2018 election cycle. Republicans: Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) $0. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) $9,700. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) $5,999. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) $6,000. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) $10,000. John Katko (R-New York) $15,400. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) $0. Brian Mast (R-Florida) $7,681. Paul Mitchell (R-Michigan) $5,000. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) $3,000. David Rouzer (R-North Carolina) $2,000. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania) $8,000. Ross Spano (R-Florida) $0. Pete Stauber (R-Minnesota) $0. Daniel Webster (R-Florida) $0. Rob Woodall (R-Georgia) $2,000. Don Young (R-Alaska) $1,000. Total Boeing Contributions to Republicans on the Aviation Subcommittee $75,780. Average for each of the 17 members: $4,457. Democrats: Colin Allred (D-Texas) $94. Anthony Brown (D-Maryland) $8,500. Julia Brownley (D-California) $0. Salud Carbajal (D-California) $5,000. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) $10,000. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) $2,000. Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) $703. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) $122. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) $5,000. Jesus Garcia (D-Illinois) $0. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) $6,000. Henry Johnson (D-Georgia) $1,000. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) $7,048. Daniel Lipinski (D-Illinois) $6,000. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) $0. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) $3,500. Grace Napolitano (D-Washington) $0. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) $0. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey) $1,000. Stacey Plaskett (D-USVI) $0. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) $2. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) $3,000. Total Amount Boeing contributions to Democrats on the Aviation Subcommittee in 2018 cycle: $58,969. Average for each of the 22 members. $2,680. Total contributed by Boeing to the 39 members of the Subcommittee: $134,749. Average per member: $3,455." Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead-pilots-brought-to-you-by-boeing/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...

cmiles74 6y ago

I disagree that anything was misrepresented. After two airliner crashes I think it is clear that the "system" (in this case the ability of the FAA to provide sufficient oversight to ensure safety of these planes and companies like Boeing to provide the FAA with the information they need) is broken. Wouldn't we all agree that the entire point of this inquiry was to "work backwards from there" and figure out where things could be improved? I'm less clear on what Sam Graves means when he says "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act," but I can see why people would be upset. It seems to me that we don't need input from anyone after two crashed airliners, be they safety experts or not: there clearly are areas in which the FAA's processes can be improved and they should be improved ASAP.

tremon 6y ago

I did not try to misrepresent anything. That first quote I left out because it was standard politician's doublespeak, i.e. not admitting anything nor committing to anything. Yes, my comment was a gut reaction. That reaction was purely based on the gall of calling into question whether the system is broken at all. To formalize my thought process: 1. $system exists to certify machines in $domain (premise) 2. 346 people die in two related $domain failures (premise) 3. $politician rejects the notion that $system is broken (premise) 4. a well-functioning system is apparently allowed to result in 346 deaths (conclusion)

kortilla 6y ago
Perhaps you’re just used to dealing with an industry that has little physical risks where the thought of people dying in a normal functioning system seems hard to believe? Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations. It’s regarded as a well-functioning system. Are Democrats fine with thousands of deaths every year?
- CraigJPerry 6y ago
  >> Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles But not due to systemic issues like the Toyota unintended accelerations. Deaths arising from systemic issues in automotive manufacture or poor road design are relatively rare in comparison to driver-induced deaths due to e.g. impairment by alcohol. >> and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations It does for (systemic issues - the issues in question this whole conversation)
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    But a lot of the causes of car accidents ARE systemic! "driving while 80 years old" "driving while on 4 hours of sleep in the past 72" "driving with the brake warning light on" I'd count all of the above as "systemic", and bet that they cause a multitude of deaths. We just don't want to accept the societal and monetary cost to eliminate them. Others, like "driving while intoxicated", we penalize but still do not take more than superficial steps to combat. (Superficial from the perspective of aviation, at least)

jasonlotito 6y ago

> "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act." Climate experts determined things too. Congress has acted... by ignoring those experts. Why should we expect them to listen this time when they have demonstrated an unwillingness to listen in the past? Judging by history, they aren't planning on acting.