3 ms·

After seeng your comment, I just went ahead and watched the doc, and I frankly I find myself in a state of rage right now. From my limited understanding, I had

by shihab 3y ago

After seeng your comment, I just went ahead and watched the doc, and I frankly I find myself in a state of rage right now. From my limited understanding, I had this impression this was an engineering failure. And you know, when you have a complicated machine, sometimes shit happens. But it wasn't that at all. Boeing knew clearly what the dangers of MCAS system were, they went to great lengths to completely hide the presence of the system from the world before delivery of the planes. Within days of the first crash, they knew it was MCAS, and kept trying to blame uneducated "foreign" pilots, kept trying to go on and tell the world again and again it was safe to fly, until that second crash happened. I understand greed, we all have that, but I don't understand how a company-wide culture can get so toxic, how utterly devoid of humanity do you have to be that your first concern after that crash and knowing there might be more deaths coming, is keeping wall street happy. And what the hell FAA? 1) they didn't regulate properly before the plane was delivered, 2) After first crash they knew how dangerous the plane is, but didn't ground it (TAMARA report), 3) After second crash, you had the transportation secratary basically saying 737 Max was "innocent untill proven guilty" so let it fly before China forced its hand, 4) No criminal proescution in the end for those fanatic executives, just a cash fine. And today this happens.

smcin 3y ago
You have to view all US regulatory goings-on wrt Boeing through the lens of Airbus-Boeing/EU-US trade rivalry (plus China's COMAC as a new entrant). Boeing is the US's largest exporter (defense + civilian), and also the 65th largest US stock overall. Any US regulator action against Boeing would affect all that, plus US stock markets. You have to wonder how independent the FAA head can afford to be from Congressional interference, in the current setup. In the US, the FAA head is appointed (or, in recent admins, left vacant) by the Senate. Back in the 2018/9 first 737MAX scandal [0], it was the Canadian, EU and Chinese regulators which were more aggressive about investigating and grounding, meanwhile the US FAA dragged its feet on taking action against Boeing while its donees like Congressman Sam Graves (R-MO 6) [1] continued to blame foreign pilot training, which was dishonest and adding insult to injury. PS consider also in 2020, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA 27) secretly sold $50K Boeing stock ahead of his committee's damning 737MAX report; then avoided election scrutiny by simply blowing the deadline to report the stock sale... When he finally did disclose the sale, it was two weeks after the 2020 general election votes were cast, and three days after Garcia declared victory. He won by 333 votes. [2] There's some scrutiny of Congressmen insider-trading biotech/pharma stocks esp. which their own committees (gasp) regulate, but really not a lot of scrutiny on aerospace. [3] Compare to George Santos, who wasn't implicated in a coverup that actually killed hundreds of people. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2019 [1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/sam-graves/summary?cid=N00013323 https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/sam-graves/s... [2]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-mike-garcia-secretly-sold-boeing-stock-ahead-of-damning-report https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-mike-garcia-secretly-s... [3]: NYT 2022/09 : These 97 Members of Congress Reported Trades in Companies Influenced by Their Committees https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/13/us/politics/congress-members-stock-trading-list.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/13/us/politics/c...
- smcin 3y ago
  Self-correction: the US did ground 737MAXes at the same time as the Canadian and other regulators, but dragged its feet on any criminal investigation. [0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-grounded-by-more-countries-heres-the-list/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-grounded-by-mo...
steelframe 3y ago
> I don't understand how a company-wide culture can get so toxic, how utterly devoid of humanity do you have to be that your first concern after that crash and knowing there might be more deaths coming, is keeping wall street happy. The most garbage human being I know personally is a project manager at Boeing. Unfortunately the only way to get this person completely out of my life would be to move to a different neighborhood.

by shihab 3y ago

smcin 3y ago

You have to view all US regulatory goings-on wrt Boeing through the lens of Airbus-Boeing/EU-US trade rivalry (plus China's COMAC as a new entrant). Boeing is the US's largest exporter (defense + civilian), and also the 65th largest US stock overall. Any US regulator action against Boeing would affect all that, plus US stock markets. You have to wonder how independent the FAA head can afford to be from Congressional interference, in the current setup. In the US, the FAA head is appointed (or, in recent admins, left vacant) by the Senate. Back in the 2018/9 first 737MAX scandal [0], it was the Canadian, EU and Chinese regulators which were more aggressive about investigating and grounding, meanwhile the US FAA dragged its feet on taking action against Boeing while its donees like Congressman Sam Graves (R-MO 6) [1] continued to blame foreign pilot training, which was dishonest and adding insult to injury. PS consider also in 2020, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA 27) secretly sold $50K Boeing stock ahead of his committee's damning 737MAX report; then avoided election scrutiny by simply blowing the deadline to report the stock sale... When he finally did disclose the sale, it was two weeks after the 2020 general election votes were cast, and three days after Garcia declared victory. He won by 333 votes. [2] There's some scrutiny of Congressmen insider-trading biotech/pharma stocks esp. which their own committees (gasp) regulate, but really not a lot of scrutiny on aerospace. [3] Compare to George Santos, who wasn't implicated in a coverup that actually killed hundreds of people. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2019 [1]: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/sam-graves/summary?cid=N00013323 https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/sam-graves/s... [2]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-mike-garcia-secretly-sold-boeing-stock-ahead-of-damning-report https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-mike-garcia-secretly-s... [3]: NYT 2022/09 : These 97 Members of Congress Reported Trades in Companies Influenced by Their Committees https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/13/us/politics/congress-members-stock-trading-list.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/13/us/politics/c...

smcin 3y ago
Self-correction: the US did ground 737MAXes at the same time as the Canadian and other regulators, but dragged its feet on any criminal investigation. [0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-grounded-by-more-countries-heres-the-list/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-grounded-by-mo...

steelframe 3y ago

> I don't understand how a company-wide culture can get so toxic, how utterly devoid of humanity do you have to be that your first concern after that crash and knowing there might be more deaths coming, is keeping wall street happy. The most garbage human being I know personally is a project manager at Boeing. Unfortunately the only way to get this person completely out of my life would be to move to a different neighborhood.