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Do you think there will be any accountability from Boeing executives? Boeing hasn't had a lot of good press in the last few years, will leadership ever be held

Do you think there will be any accountability from Boeing executives? Boeing hasn't had a lot of good press in the last few years, will leadership ever be held accountable? There was a time when Boeing was considered a very trustworthy and reliable company, is this the result of a decline in an engineering-focused culture? Edit: Many of the comments in this thread mention that they avoid the 737 MAX whenever possible. Maybe if enough people start to boycott these unsafe airplanes that would result in more economic pressure and lead to improvements?

nvy 3y ago
[flagged]
- Hamuko 3y ago
  >This is probably "just" a maintenance issue. >The Boeing 737-9 MAX rolled off the assembly line just two months ago, receiving its certification in November 2023, according to FAA record posted online. How does the maintenance crew fuck up a plane this badly in the span of two months?
  - nvy 3y ago
    Well, this is my field so let's calm down for a sec and dispense with the hyperbole. The plane itself is not "fucked"; my understanding is the aircraft landed safely and nobody was injured. The door/window that departed the aircraft is a serious incident that will be investigated. There will be a report produced that identifies the root cause(s). >How does the maintenance crew fuck up a plane this badly in the span of two months? Are you under the impression that aircraft maintenance works like car maintenance, where you just change the oil every so often? Lots and lots of things get removed and replaced on a regular basis. It's entirely possible somebody just didn't install the door properly after removing it for a routine inspection. It's a big deal and a serious incident but these things do happen from time to time, even at name-brand airlines. I'm all for lambasting Boeing but let's stop frothing at the mouth until we see the report.
    - colechristensen 3y ago
      Frothing at the mouth is exactly what is called for here. A plane that loses a big chunk is indeed “fucked”, the only reason someone didn’t die is that that particular seat wasn’t occupied. There should have been many many redundant safety systems and procedures here with either didn’t exist or failed. People should be out for blood because there are obviously serious problems at both Boeing and the FAA. This was not a near miss, this was a 10 out of 10 failure of the kind which should never happen. The NTSB report will indeed show much but there is no reason to not demand congressional hearings and criminal investigations immediately. Everyone on that plane should start a class action suit against the FAA and Boeing immediately.
      - raverbashing 3y ago
        I'm not standing by comments that go against the safety culture of aviation No, nobody should be "frothing at the mouth", that's an ignorant and unhelpful behaviour. Air travel didn't get safer by doing that > A plane that loses a big chunk is indeed “fucked” It landed fine and it is in principle repairable. No, it is not fucked > There should have been many many redundant safety systems and procedures here with either didn’t exist or failed Again someone who doesn't know nothing about the subject and thinks that experts haven't thought about their first conclusion after 5 seconds of thinking. > this was a 10 out of 10 failure 5 out of 10 wrong on that comment. The seal failed and everything else worked. The masks, the procedures, the emergency landing. But yes, either the installation of that door seal was faulty or there is a systemic issue with that seal (not sure how many customers are flying with it as opposed to just having the door there) - or a combination of factors with something else in between. > Although a door is available for that row in the plane's design Alaska chose not to exercise that option, having the doors deactivated by Boeing before delivery. > It therefore appears from the inside of the cabin like a regular window seat, although from the outside the frame of the deactivated door remains visible
        colechristensen 3y ago
        Aerospace was my field before tech was. Reliability is still my field. A door got sucked out of a plane in flight. That is not a matter of unavoidable human error but can only be the consequence of a concert of cascading failures of the type that should never happen which is why it’s a 10/10, if the flight had been full at least one passenger would have likely been sucked out. It is dumb luck that this did not happen. Your attitude of derating a disaster like this is a strong indicator of the type of problem in the industry. In the end if we don’t get executives resigning and major operating overhauls with the responsible entities, it will be a terrible miscarriage of justice.
- brandall10 3y ago
  This is such an inherent safety issue though one would expect a multitude of things must go wrong (procedurally or otherwise) for this to happen.
- bozhark 3y ago
  I’m suspicious of this comment. Especially since this article was directly above this one on HN for awhile today: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-wants-faa-to-exempt-max-7-from-safety-rules-to-get-it-in-the-air/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
  - nvy 3y ago
    I'm an aerospace engineer, this is my field. It makes no sense to call for heads to roll without even knowing the root cause. If this happens again on a different airframe, I'll change my tune in a hurry.
    - eduction 3y ago
      That doesn’t make you an expert on manufacturing. How long have you been in the field? How are you not aware of what engineers in and around Boeing have been saying about company culture for literally decades? How many Stonecipher stories have you heard? Enough with the swaggering appeal to authority.
    - anonymousab 3y ago
      Modern Boeing has a consistent record for a reckless disregard for critical aspects of safety in favor of profits. So assuming that this is another case of that and calling for heads to roll at first sight is a fair reaction. That is the result of the reputation their executives have willingly built and the choices they have made.
    - baq 3y ago
      Hello from the future! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917967
- cf1241290841 3y ago
  > ITT: software people think they're experts in airworthiness and aircraft maintenance. You mean working with safety critical systems with hardware software co design and human interaction through complex processes? Yes last i checked we do have a bunch of safety focused computer engineers who do that for a living. That you think this is a matter of simple engineering might be the problem here. "Just maintenance/installation" is a legit error case somebody should have planed for and you thinking in terms of conspiracies has me rather worried. edit: I wouldnt assume i could tell when a design is airworthy, maybe reconsider if you are qualified to make general statements about safe operations. The two are very much not the same.
- charles_f 3y ago
  > It's unlikely that the Boeing executives pushed a new window Those executives are responsible for the culture, setting the priority, dictating the level of safety - and putting pressure to release, pushing people to cut corners and save cost. Of course they "didn't push a new window". But they're where the buck stops. So if it's a build issue, they have their responsibility.
bozhark 3y ago
Name the Board. Name the Officers. Message their socials publicly. Don’t dox them, hold them accountable in a public facing manner
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  This is public information. If it makes you feel better, go for it. If you want actual change, you’ll need to find an issue regular voters will call their electeds on.
masklinn 3y ago
Take that with a grain of salt but I have seen several people over the years claim this is due to MDD pulling a NeXT (getting acquired then taking over culturally).
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...
- p_l 3y ago
  Which is a bit of white-washing, considered that the original 737 not only had a design fault that led to accidents. The issue was rudder reversal caused by using single actuator instead of two, which turns out could "flip" part of its construction at times.
waihtis 3y ago
[flagged]
mcfedr 3y ago
What about FAA execs? This is their job to make sure this cannot happen
- p_l 3y ago
  And the delegation of certification happened because FAA was not given the budget to maintain enough experts on their own payroll.
Rapzid 3y ago
Err, maybe that was there perception but isn't the 737 line responsible for the vast majority of all airline fatalities? It's basically the grim reaper of the skies!
- bombcar 3y ago
  That could also result from it simply being the most flown plane.
  - zug_zug 3y ago
    Agreed, you'd want accident numbers adjusted per-passengers-per-flight.

nvy 3y ago

[flagged]

Hamuko 3y ago
>This is probably "just" a maintenance issue. >The Boeing 737-9 MAX rolled off the assembly line just two months ago, receiving its certification in November 2023, according to FAA record posted online. How does the maintenance crew fuck up a plane this badly in the span of two months?
- nvy 3y ago
  Well, this is my field so let's calm down for a sec and dispense with the hyperbole. The plane itself is not "fucked"; my understanding is the aircraft landed safely and nobody was injured. The door/window that departed the aircraft is a serious incident that will be investigated. There will be a report produced that identifies the root cause(s). >How does the maintenance crew fuck up a plane this badly in the span of two months? Are you under the impression that aircraft maintenance works like car maintenance, where you just change the oil every so often? Lots and lots of things get removed and replaced on a regular basis. It's entirely possible somebody just didn't install the door properly after removing it for a routine inspection. It's a big deal and a serious incident but these things do happen from time to time, even at name-brand airlines. I'm all for lambasting Boeing but let's stop frothing at the mouth until we see the report.
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    Frothing at the mouth is exactly what is called for here. A plane that loses a big chunk is indeed “fucked”, the only reason someone didn’t die is that that particular seat wasn’t occupied. There should have been many many redundant safety systems and procedures here with either didn’t exist or failed. People should be out for blood because there are obviously serious problems at both Boeing and the FAA. This was not a near miss, this was a 10 out of 10 failure of the kind which should never happen. The NTSB report will indeed show much but there is no reason to not demand congressional hearings and criminal investigations immediately. Everyone on that plane should start a class action suit against the FAA and Boeing immediately.
    - raverbashing 3y ago
      I'm not standing by comments that go against the safety culture of aviation No, nobody should be "frothing at the mouth", that's an ignorant and unhelpful behaviour. Air travel didn't get safer by doing that > A plane that loses a big chunk is indeed “fucked” It landed fine and it is in principle repairable. No, it is not fucked > There should have been many many redundant safety systems and procedures here with either didn’t exist or failed Again someone who doesn't know nothing about the subject and thinks that experts haven't thought about their first conclusion after 5 seconds of thinking. > this was a 10 out of 10 failure 5 out of 10 wrong on that comment. The seal failed and everything else worked. The masks, the procedures, the emergency landing. But yes, either the installation of that door seal was faulty or there is a systemic issue with that seal (not sure how many customers are flying with it as opposed to just having the door there) - or a combination of factors with something else in between. > Although a door is available for that row in the plane's design Alaska chose not to exercise that option, having the doors deactivated by Boeing before delivery. > It therefore appears from the inside of the cabin like a regular window seat, although from the outside the frame of the deactivated door remains visible
      - colechristensen 3y ago
        Aerospace was my field before tech was. Reliability is still my field. A door got sucked out of a plane in flight. That is not a matter of unavoidable human error but can only be the consequence of a concert of cascading failures of the type that should never happen which is why it’s a 10/10, if the flight had been full at least one passenger would have likely been sucked out. It is dumb luck that this did not happen. Your attitude of derating a disaster like this is a strong indicator of the type of problem in the industry. In the end if we don’t get executives resigning and major operating overhauls with the responsible entities, it will be a terrible miscarriage of justice.
brandall10 3y ago
This is such an inherent safety issue though one would expect a multitude of things must go wrong (procedurally or otherwise) for this to happen.
bozhark 3y ago
I’m suspicious of this comment. Especially since this article was directly above this one on HN for awhile today: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-wants-faa-to-exempt-max-7-from-safety-rules-to-get-it-in-the-air/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
- nvy 3y ago
  I'm an aerospace engineer, this is my field. It makes no sense to call for heads to roll without even knowing the root cause. If this happens again on a different airframe, I'll change my tune in a hurry.
  - eduction 3y ago
    That doesn’t make you an expert on manufacturing. How long have you been in the field? How are you not aware of what engineers in and around Boeing have been saying about company culture for literally decades? How many Stonecipher stories have you heard? Enough with the swaggering appeal to authority.
  - anonymousab 3y ago
    Modern Boeing has a consistent record for a reckless disregard for critical aspects of safety in favor of profits. So assuming that this is another case of that and calling for heads to roll at first sight is a fair reaction. That is the result of the reputation their executives have willingly built and the choices they have made.
  - baq 3y ago
    Hello from the future! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917967
cf1241290841 3y ago
> ITT: software people think they're experts in airworthiness and aircraft maintenance. You mean working with safety critical systems with hardware software co design and human interaction through complex processes? Yes last i checked we do have a bunch of safety focused computer engineers who do that for a living. That you think this is a matter of simple engineering might be the problem here. "Just maintenance/installation" is a legit error case somebody should have planed for and you thinking in terms of conspiracies has me rather worried. edit: I wouldnt assume i could tell when a design is airworthy, maybe reconsider if you are qualified to make general statements about safe operations. The two are very much not the same.
charles_f 3y ago
> It's unlikely that the Boeing executives pushed a new window Those executives are responsible for the culture, setting the priority, dictating the level of safety - and putting pressure to release, pushing people to cut corners and save cost. Of course they "didn't push a new window". But they're where the buck stops. So if it's a build issue, they have their responsibility.

bozhark 3y ago

Name the Board. Name the Officers. Message their socials publicly. Don’t dox them, hold them accountable in a public facing manner

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
This is public information. If it makes you feel better, go for it. If you want actual change, you’ll need to find an issue regular voters will call their electeds on.

masklinn 3y ago

Take that with a grain of salt but I have seen several people over the years claim this is due to MDD pulling a NeXT (getting acquired then taking over culturally).

MattGaiser 3y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...
p_l 3y ago
Which is a bit of white-washing, considered that the original 737 not only had a design fault that led to accidents. The issue was rudder reversal caused by using single actuator instead of two, which turns out could "flip" part of its construction at times.

waihtis 3y ago

[flagged]

mcfedr 3y ago

What about FAA execs? This is their job to make sure this cannot happen

p_l 3y ago
And the delegation of certification happened because FAA was not given the budget to maintain enough experts on their own payroll.

Rapzid 3y ago

Err, maybe that was there perception but isn't the 737 line responsible for the vast majority of all airline fatalities? It's basically the grim reaper of the skies!

bombcar 3y ago
That could also result from it simply being the most flown plane.
- zug_zug 3y ago
  Agreed, you'd want accident numbers adjusted per-passengers-per-flight.