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I'm all for calling the MCAS system bad engineering, but raising any of those things to the level of criminality seems a bit ridiculous. Lacking sensor redunda

I'm all for calling the MCAS system bad engineering, but raising any of those things to the level of criminality seems a bit ridiculous. Lacking sensor redundancy is arguably a bad design decision, but what law was actually broken?

salawat 3y ago
Criminal negligence. It is obvious to any practitioner the safety consequences of implementing systems that way. Fraud would be another. Agents of Boeing represented to airlines and regulators that training nor knowledge of implementation details were necessary for safe operation. Airlines and regulators relied on that misrepresentation to the public's and their own detriment. Finally, securities fraud. The problem of course, is any evidence from the NTSB must be omitted from any criminal prosecution.
- rainsford 3y ago
  > Criminal negligence. It is obvious to any practitioner the safety consequences of implementing systems that way. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but it doesn't seem at all obvious the design of MCAS would rise to the level of criminal negligence, which is an understandably high bar. It's not a flight critical system (pilots can easily safely fly the plane without it functioning) and pilots are trained to respond to issues with automatic trim regardless of the cause. The particular failure mode of the system and the difficulty the pilots had in responding to it, even after they knew about it in the case of the second MAX crash, should obviously be addressed and arguably should have been considered during the design phase. But I don't see any world where that reasonably meets the bar of criminal liability. > Fraud would be another. Agents of Boeing represented to airlines and regulators that training nor knowledge of implementation details were necessary for safe operation. Again I don't see how that meets the criminal fraud bar unless Boeing knew in advance that extra training and awareness were required and deliberately chose not to provide those things.
  - salawat 3y ago
    MCAS's design was single sensor because dual sensor eould not have skated by the FAA without simulator time as a requirement which Boeing could not afford, because their contracts were competitive over Airbus contingent on there not being simulator training required to get pilots type rated. Boeing absolutely knew. As Upton Sinclair famously states however, it is hard to get a man to understand that which his paycheck depends on him not understanding.
junon 3y ago
Boeing knew of the issues. They didn't fix them because profits.

salawat 3y ago

Criminal negligence. It is obvious to any practitioner the safety consequences of implementing systems that way. Fraud would be another. Agents of Boeing represented to airlines and regulators that training nor knowledge of implementation details were necessary for safe operation. Airlines and regulators relied on that misrepresentation to the public's and their own detriment. Finally, securities fraud. The problem of course, is any evidence from the NTSB must be omitted from any criminal prosecution.

rainsford 3y ago
> Criminal negligence. It is obvious to any practitioner the safety consequences of implementing systems that way. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but it doesn't seem at all obvious the design of MCAS would rise to the level of criminal negligence, which is an understandably high bar. It's not a flight critical system (pilots can easily safely fly the plane without it functioning) and pilots are trained to respond to issues with automatic trim regardless of the cause. The particular failure mode of the system and the difficulty the pilots had in responding to it, even after they knew about it in the case of the second MAX crash, should obviously be addressed and arguably should have been considered during the design phase. But I don't see any world where that reasonably meets the bar of criminal liability. > Fraud would be another. Agents of Boeing represented to airlines and regulators that training nor knowledge of implementation details were necessary for safe operation. Again I don't see how that meets the criminal fraud bar unless Boeing knew in advance that extra training and awareness were required and deliberately chose not to provide those things.
- salawat 3y ago
  MCAS's design was single sensor because dual sensor eould not have skated by the FAA without simulator time as a requirement which Boeing could not afford, because their contracts were competitive over Airbus contingent on there not being simulator training required to get pilots type rated. Boeing absolutely knew. As Upton Sinclair famously states however, it is hard to get a man to understand that which his paycheck depends on him not understanding.

junon 3y ago

Boeing knew of the issues. They didn't fix them because profits.