3 ms·

> would you expect a whistleblower to not be completely anonymous? In my view, a "whistleblower" is someone who gives their information confidentially (not ano

> would you expect a whistleblower to not be completely anonymous? In my view, a "whistleblower" is someone who gives their information confidentially (not anonymously) to a responsible investigating authority. Not someone who writes a comment on the internet that you or I could write ourselves, with a little research sprinkled with credible-sounding 'insider chit-chat'.

civilized 3y ago
Ordinarily I would agree with you, but the case of Boeing includes some extraordinary context. This company's incompetence killed 346 people in 2018-2019, and the postmortem revealed an unethically cozy relationship with their regulator, the FAA. Now, five years later, we are seeing more catastrophic failures that will eventually claim more lives, and once again the FAA is coming under scrutiny for being too lax in its oversight of Boeing. It seems to me that the FAA lacks some kind of either technical or organizational competence to regulate Boeing. Screws must be turned publicly until Boeing's financier-led culture is replaced with the original engineering-led culture. Anonymous insider comments are one reasonable way to do this, although it might be better to work as an anonymous source to a well-known journalistic outlet.
- jakeinspace 3y ago
  It is very in-vogue to hate on Boeing on the internet. Deservedly, I might add, but it does mean that it wouldn’t be at all surprising for some random non-employee to make up some detailed post as a whistleblower.
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    Right it's "in vogue" "to hate" rather than being concrete facts
  - zardo 3y ago
    Seattle Times verified with Boeing employees that the whistle blower is describing actual systems and processes used.
- willk 3y ago
  > This company's incompetence killed 346 people It wasn't incompetence, it was greed. They said "no new training for pilots" in order to keep sales volume up and to ensure no new training they kept the MCAS system a secret from pilots.
g-b-r 3y ago
For now it seems credible and can be at least kept in mind. Or maybe we could wait another 20 years: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075 https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075
- dm319 3y ago
  Well that is a prescient piece.
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    Yeah, and you can't miss its comments
ricardobeat 3y ago
See the second part of the comment. The anonymity is not the problem.

civilized 3y ago

Ordinarily I would agree with you, but the case of Boeing includes some extraordinary context. This company's incompetence killed 346 people in 2018-2019, and the postmortem revealed an unethically cozy relationship with their regulator, the FAA. Now, five years later, we are seeing more catastrophic failures that will eventually claim more lives, and once again the FAA is coming under scrutiny for being too lax in its oversight of Boeing. It seems to me that the FAA lacks some kind of either technical or organizational competence to regulate Boeing. Screws must be turned publicly until Boeing's financier-led culture is replaced with the original engineering-led culture. Anonymous insider comments are one reasonable way to do this, although it might be better to work as an anonymous source to a well-known journalistic outlet.

jakeinspace 3y ago
It is very in-vogue to hate on Boeing on the internet. Deservedly, I might add, but it does mean that it wouldn’t be at all surprising for some random non-employee to make up some detailed post as a whistleblower.
- g-b-r 3y ago
  Right it's "in vogue" "to hate" rather than being concrete facts
- zardo 3y ago
  Seattle Times verified with Boeing employees that the whistle blower is describing actual systems and processes used.
willk 3y ago
> This company's incompetence killed 346 people It wasn't incompetence, it was greed. They said "no new training for pilots" in order to keep sales volume up and to ensure no new training they kept the MCAS system a secret from pilots.

g-b-r 3y ago

For now it seems credible and can be at least kept in mind. Or maybe we could wait another 20 years: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075 https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075

dm319 3y ago
Well that is a prescient piece.
- g-b-r 3y ago
  Yeah, and you can't miss its comments

ricardobeat 3y ago

See the second part of the comment. The anonymity is not the problem.