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During the aughts, DERs (14 CFR section 183, employees of the company but "FAA Avatars") - were given relatively godlike powers compared to their role even in a

During the aughts, DERs (14 CFR section 183, employees of the company but "FAA Avatars") - were given relatively godlike powers compared to their role even in as recently as the 1990s. From what I understand that trend only intensified in the decades since. With my own eyes, I've seen activities rescheduled for a "friendly" DER's shift, and I have seen those "Pet DERs" go back and forth to the government offices, because those are the ones the manufacturer trusts to hire back from government service. Supposedly, the FAA offices around Puget Sound are thoroughly infiltrated with Boeing or Boeing-Subcon rotating door staff like this, but take that with a grain of salt. I think it's this sort of abuse that's primarily coming under the microscope, but if I'm being honest, the whole DER scheme needs to be reset to something viable. I mean, cmon. If I am employed by X, but I am an FAA DER, who do you think I am going to side with? The guy who pays my mortgage, or the guy who gives me a fancy shingle to hang on the office? That's a role that should have sharply defined boundaries.

tcbawo 3y ago
Isn’t it in both the FAA and Boeing’s interest to produce safe and reliable airplanes? It seems like the regulatory picture is not effectively fulfilling its duties, but the ultimate responsibility is with Boeing’s leadership structure for promulgating a culture where design lapses can persist and human error can be compounded.
- ponector 3y ago
  Don't mess interest of organizations in general and particular individuals. I'm sure many people in Boeing really care only about how to get required signoffs with as little effort as possible.
- acdha 3y ago
  Yes, but it’s always a question of timeframe and personal distance. One of the insidious problems behind the modern MBAs’ veneration of Jack Welch is that GE always made its numbers, irregardless of the long-term cost to the company. If you’re in a position where your personal compensation depends on something going on a particular schedule, such as a huge sale of airplanes once a new model is approved, it’s going to be very easy to tell yourself that it’s “just”government red-tape delaying your cabin cruiser and the “safety Nazis” are just over-concerned. The odds are good that nothing will happen for years so you might not even be there when it happens, and complex failures usually mean there will be some complicating factors so the guys who made bad calls might be telling themselves that everything would have been fine if it wasn’t for someone else’s actions.
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  Somewhat in the same vein as what acdha says, but you're dealing with multiple goals and incentives, some ideological. acdha covers the most important ideological obstacle: financialism. Basically, the notion that if you're good at managing money, you're good at managing everything[1]. This is itself an ideological proposition, ironically resembling the late-Soviet tendency to inject "marxist" or "socialist" into every branch of learning, because, well, if you know class dynamics, you know everything. Some might say, "Regulation is good, we need a very large and meticulous government-managed safety group, because large capital projects with little safety margin require government involvement". The risk here is creating an unnecessarily hostile relationship with industry, which could increase scope until productivity falls below a theoretical floor. This is starting from "regulation is good", and it's going to want to prove the point. Others might say, "government entities are ipse facto incapable of meeting goals, therefore we need to eliminate or decrease regulation so industry has greater freedom to establish safety practice." The risk here is when industry is operating under a different set of incentives (see, again, acdha's point on financialism), their goals don't align with value (reliability, safety, performance), but rather on the revenue, or even complex derivatives thereof. This is another ideological incentive, but there's a risk of a death spiral: regulation is bad and stupid -> shrink it -> bad things happen -> proof that regulation is bad -> regulation is bad and stupid. [1] I'd posit that Welchian financialism is actually not even good at making money, over a risk horizon longer than a few years (or even a few quarters), but it's quite good at belching out cash in a very short term.

tcbawo 3y ago

Isn’t it in both the FAA and Boeing’s interest to produce safe and reliable airplanes? It seems like the regulatory picture is not effectively fulfilling its duties, but the ultimate responsibility is with Boeing’s leadership structure for promulgating a culture where design lapses can persist and human error can be compounded.

ponector 3y ago
Don't mess interest of organizations in general and particular individuals. I'm sure many people in Boeing really care only about how to get required signoffs with as little effort as possible.
acdha 3y ago
Yes, but it’s always a question of timeframe and personal distance. One of the insidious problems behind the modern MBAs’ veneration of Jack Welch is that GE always made its numbers, irregardless of the long-term cost to the company. If you’re in a position where your personal compensation depends on something going on a particular schedule, such as a huge sale of airplanes once a new model is approved, it’s going to be very easy to tell yourself that it’s “just”government red-tape delaying your cabin cruiser and the “safety Nazis” are just over-concerned. The odds are good that nothing will happen for years so you might not even be there when it happens, and complex failures usually mean there will be some complicating factors so the guys who made bad calls might be telling themselves that everything would have been fine if it wasn’t for someone else’s actions.
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Somewhat in the same vein as what acdha says, but you're dealing with multiple goals and incentives, some ideological. acdha covers the most important ideological obstacle: financialism. Basically, the notion that if you're good at managing money, you're good at managing everything[1]. This is itself an ideological proposition, ironically resembling the late-Soviet tendency to inject "marxist" or "socialist" into every branch of learning, because, well, if you know class dynamics, you know everything. Some might say, "Regulation is good, we need a very large and meticulous government-managed safety group, because large capital projects with little safety margin require government involvement". The risk here is creating an unnecessarily hostile relationship with industry, which could increase scope until productivity falls below a theoretical floor. This is starting from "regulation is good", and it's going to want to prove the point. Others might say, "government entities are ipse facto incapable of meeting goals, therefore we need to eliminate or decrease regulation so industry has greater freedom to establish safety practice." The risk here is when industry is operating under a different set of incentives (see, again, acdha's point on financialism), their goals don't align with value (reliability, safety, performance), but rather on the revenue, or even complex derivatives thereof. This is another ideological incentive, but there's a risk of a death spiral: regulation is bad and stupid -> shrink it -> bad things happen -> proof that regulation is bad -> regulation is bad and stupid. [1] I'd posit that Welchian financialism is actually not even good at making money, over a risk horizon longer than a few years (or even a few quarters), but it's quite good at belching out cash in a very short term.