11 ms·

Boeing faces new US investigation into 'missed' 787 inspections

255 points by mindracer 2y ago

ItsBob 2y ago
At what point do we say "This company is rotten to the core and needs shut down"? This article alleges that they may be falsifying safety stuff! It's not like they're making lollipops ffs... they're transporting millions of people per day in things that cannot afford to have issues... ever! Sure, I understand that the media has them under a spotlight right now but even so! On another note this quote got me laughing: "Stocker said the company would “celebrate” the employee who spoke up." "Yeah, Mike, just step out the back while Tony and Big Joe celebrate you in the alleyway here"! :)
- hnthrowaway0328 2y ago
  Boeing is in the position of TBTF. The best can happen is a change of management but this doesn't solve anything. Good leadership does not grow like grass, and if the soil is corrupt none grows.
  - andkenneth 2y ago
    IMO there needs to be personal criminal responsibility for safety related issues in an engineering org like this. We did this in New Zealand a few years back, you can get prosecuted and sent to prison for wilfully ignoring safety issues that cause serious injury or death, and that responsibility exists at every level up to the board.
- SteveNuts 2y ago
  I’m not knowledgeable in this area, is there any precedent or legal method for the US government unilaterally shutting down a large publicly traded conglomerate (purely as a hypothetical)? Not that I think they’d actually do it, I’m just curious if it’s even possible. I imagine they could bog them down with lawsuits but Boeing has a deep war chest and it would take many years.
  - jmyeet 2y ago
    Yes, the US can nationalize a company. And it's happened before [1]. The current political climate means there's no appetite for any party to alienate actual or potential donors by doing something like this however. The one exception is banks where the FDIC can (and does) take over nonperforming banks all the time [2]. Think of it as eminent domain but for companies. [1]: https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-us https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-... [2]: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/in-brief/index.html https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/in-...
  - brookst 2y ago
    Not just Boeing, all of their shareholders, including institutional ones. This would essentially be an edict that the stock price is now $0, modulo liquidation plans. But I don’t think you could declare the company too rotten to operate and also sell off its operations, so enterprise value would be best case. Oh, and many of its assets in the form of planes would presumably be instantly devalued/worthless. It’s a fun hypothetical (unless you work for Boeing), but I don’t think there’s a legal precedent or a good outcome even if it were possible.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      This would almost certainly fail legally on "taking" grounds. It also fails politically, since Boeing is a critical US defence contractor, and the US is not going to cut off its supply of parts for military aircraft. Killing Boeing is a fantasy.
    - ensignavenger 2y ago
      A more practical approach would be to fine them a huge amount of money after a fair investigation and trial. Then, when the company is forced to declare bankruptcy or is on the brink of it, the US Government could buy the company out of bankruptcy, replacing all executive management and run it for a enough time to ensure that corrections have been implemented, then the Government could take the company public again and divest itself.
  - ItsBob 2y ago
sylware 2y ago
All this Boeing thing is now really seriously dangerous, up to life threatening. Something seems REALLY wrong. Maybe time to ramp up the type of "services" to understand what is going up there...
stephc_int13 2y ago
I sincerely hope this whole Boeing debacle will be used as wake-up call for other large corporations, or the general public. Most of them are not as safety-critical, but some of them are, thinking about Big Pharma and Chemical giants...
- ItsBob 2y ago
  Not sure what you mean: there have, to-date, been no repercussions for Boeing! They're getting away with all kinds of shit here! In an ideal world, companies with a massive safety-related function should have Warhammer 40k gun servitors hovering over the execs in the event they cut corners on safety with orders to empty the clip! Boeing are really a gov extension these days from what I can see.
  - clarionbell 2y ago
    I vote for the servitors. Either that or an arco-flagellant on quick dispatch for the entire room. That aside, yes, Boeing and in EU Airbus are very much intertwined with government. It's inevitable when their products are strategically important and barriers to entry high. It's unfortunate, but that's how it is.
    - decafninja 2y ago
      Better to lobotomize the entire c-suite into servitors for tech heresy.
  - itsanaccount 2y ago
    https://www.pewpewtactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Magazine-and-Clips-1536x1026.jpg https://www.pewpewtactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ma... Clips help fill internal magazines on older weapons. A servitor drone would have a magazine. Just being pendantic but I think you'd want "dump a mag into c-suite executives found guilty of corruption in safety critical industries." I'd also say since we don't currently have servitor drones we may have to do it ourselves. In an ideal world of course.
jmyeet 2y ago
It's a well known phenomenon that over time profits tend to fall [1]. Investors demand growth however so the consequence is obvious: all companies will tend to try and increase prices and/or cut costs to maintain profits. Raising prices tends to lower demand. It might be the case that a lower volume at higher margin leads to a higher gross profit but often it doesn't. So raising prices tends to be limited to where demand is ineleastic or you have or can construct a monopoly or enclosure of some kind. So most companies have to resort o cutting costs. This means suppressing wages and doing what Boeing has done in spades: using subcontracting to lower costs. Being is now in the FAFO phase of cost-cutting. Since around the time of the McDonnell-Douglas merger, the engineers lost and the accountants won. Once again, this Steve Jobs quote [2] is apropos. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKsbt5wii0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKsbt5wii0
- resource_waste 2y ago
  >So raising prices tends to be limited to where demand is ineleastic or you have or can construct a monopoly or enclosure of some kind. United States Medical Anyway, outside of that, this typically is a good thing. $200 flat screen tvs make it easier to live life. I remember moving out of my parents house and being amazed at how affordable the minimum products were. Yes offbrand TV with 50 hz, yes you $2/lb meat with 30% fat, yes your shower curtain was a pain in the butt to install... But making 19k/yr, I could afford it.
  - GartzenDeHaes 2y ago
    > $200 flat screen tvs make it easier to live life. From what I've been reading, those cheap TV's won't last more than 3 years. So those poor people will end up spending more on TV's than if they bought an old-style expensive TV. Same thing with shoes, rent, cars, etc.
    - resource_waste 2y ago
      ? I am still using my 200 dollar tv from 2012. If you want to repeat a fiction story about boots, that's fine, but its still a fiction story.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I sure hope the investigation finds some fault with management for creating an environment where falsifying records was considered an option.
jl6 2y ago
Is this the kind of problem that is being uncovered because of the extra scrutiny that Boeing is currently under? To put it another way, is this the kind of problem that is endemic across industry and we’re only finding out now because we are taking the time to look? One can only imagine the horrors lurking in industries lucky enough not to have had any famous failures recently.
- yareal 2y ago
  Boeing used to have a safety culture and and engineering excellence culture. That changed over the past twenty to thirty years as leadership rotted the company and monetized that rot by choosing to skip safety and engineering in favor of profits.
- cjk2 2y ago
  I work in a different sector. If we built planes it'd be raining bodies. If you go looking you will find. And it's almost never pretty stuff. There is however a lot of paperwork filled in that says everything is fine.
- _ache_ 2y ago
  You are inverting cause and consequence. It's because Boeing has had so many failures that it has come under particular scrutiny. Failures which, from a statistical point of view, suggest that there may be a cause to look for. Other companies do not have as many (and as basic) problems.
- nolok 2y ago
  Depends what you mean by industry. If you mean the US big airliner industry, then Boeing is essentially it, so yes, And I presume it comes directly from the FAA delegating so much of their job to Boeing meaning Boeing had to inspect itself. The you had the bad deal grand fathered between USA and EU : FAA inspect Boeing planes, EASA has to accept that certification without checking by themselves. Airbus need to be certified by the EASA, they have much less if any delegated authority for that (though they do pay a lot into that, there is a difference between you need to pay into your regulator and you are your own regulator through your own employees). And then they need to separately be certified by Boeing. This means the surface area for Boeing screwing around is much, much larger. I don't doubt there are flaws if we looked into airbus assembly, but I highly doubt they would be systemic and part of a larger screwed process like what is being found at Boeing.
yareal 2y ago
I believe it's time to nationalize Boeing, remove their leadership and replace them with engineers. The people who run the company should be the people who know how to build planes. It's in our economic and industrial and defense interest to have a well run, high quality aerospace manufacturer.
- QuarterReptile 2y ago
  >it's time to nationalize Boeing I seem to have lost the thread between that and > The people who run the company should be the people who know how to build planes. It's in our economic and industrial and defense interest to have a well run, high quality aerospace manufacturer. As a reminder, the leadership competitions in bureaucracy select for loyalty to the bureaucracy, not the bureaucracy's stated mission. Exceptions are rare and fleeting.
  - _ache_ 2y ago
    I may suggest that the link between the two statements is exactly to escape from the trap you talked about. If the leadership is elected by the state rather than by internal competition, you don't end up with a group of people who are loyal to themselves but with a meritocratic leadership.
  - 6510 2y ago
    I liked the analogy with hyenas and Saint Bernard's. The Saint Bernard is high-maintenance, require lots of care and attention. They are very loyal but need to constantly be told what to do. The hyena is highly opportunistic, they see and hear everything and need to be monitored constantly or they run off with your company. They over-sell everything specially themselves. The Saint Bernard's all need their own pen or they cant write, if there is one pen in the building all of the hyenas can write.
- _ache_ 2y ago
  Yeah, but actually, that nationalize part isn't something in trend in USA, isn't it ? Gwynne Shotwell, engineer and COO of SpaceX maybe considered from the job of CEO of Boeing. It seems to me more USA-ish move than nationalize Boeing. Don't know witch one is the best for Boeing in the end.
swasheck 2y ago
really excited to be flying one these in 36 hours
- fransje26 2y ago
  Oh, there might be some exciting in-flight moments! I read that Boeing's new natural ventilation system was quite breathtaking.. And, if you are in the right seat, you might get a better outside view!
buster 2y ago
Interesting read regarding "missed inspections": https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa
langsoul-com 2y ago
Feels like Boeing is trying to shift the blame on the individual instead of their incentive and corporate culture about missed inspections. Its not the company, but rather x individual that falsified their safety report. Don't worry, we'll fire them and everyone can forget about this. Is the feeling I'm getting.
- ActionHank 2y ago
  They remember that VW "it was a lone developer" play.
  - ruph123 2y ago
    Then they would have forgotten that former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn was indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges.
    - Drunk_Engineer 2y ago
      That was 4 years ago, and the case has not gone to trial.
      - ruph123 2y ago
        Trial is starting this year: https://apnews.com/article/germany-volkswagen-diesel-scandal-winterkorn-trial-5eac8ed0b501426a912e3c7524e3874e https://apnews.com/article/germany-volkswagen-diesel-scandal...
  - agilob 2y ago
    who was charged and went to prison
    - onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
      Also, that one bank employee (Kareem Serageldin) that went to jail over the financial crisis. Don't worry guys, we got him.
karaterobot 2y ago
> Stocker said the company would “celebrate” the employee who spoke up. My advice to this employee: run.
proee 2y ago
How many organizations of similar size bamboozle regulators? When a fast food restaurant is responsible for an ecoli outbreak, regulars are quick to point out broken processes in the organization that need fixed. It's a bit of reactionary theater, where both sides are playing a game to show that they are not the source of the problem. If you are the regulator, there is plenty of motivation to show the world you are doing your job by pointing to missteps in a process. If you are the offender, there is plenty of motivation to concede to "some" failures in process, cut your losses, and show that you are improving. Everyone, if you could just submit your TPS reports on time that would be great.
- avgDev 2y ago
  Regulators are generally blinder when it comes to huge organizations. Boeing is a huge DOD contractor. They have a direct line to people at the top of the US govt., just like other huge organizations. It is a big fish, and it is hard to fry. US govt. discussed shut downs during COVID with largest organizations in the US before they even occurred. Some knew they were coming before anything was announced. It isn't some kind of conspiracy either, most governments will "care" more about the biggest contractors and businesses in their nation.
interdrift 2y ago
Always remember that one guy testifying that he saw employees jumping with their feet on airplane parts to insert them in somewhere. LOL.
croes 2y ago
If companies are people in the US after how many crimes does a company get a life sentence or death penalty?
belter 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40278391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40278391
ziofill 2y ago
For a split second I thought how ironic there were 787 missed inspections.

255 points by mindracer 2y ago

At what point do we say "This company is rotten to the core and needs shut down"? This article alleges that they may be falsifying safety stuff! It's not like they're making lollipops ffs... they're transporting millions of people per day in things that cannot afford to have issues... ever! Sure, I understand that the media has them under a spotlight right now but even so! On another note this quote got me laughing: "Stocker said the company would “celebrate” the employee who spoke up." "Yeah, Mike, just step out the back while Tony and Big Joe celebrate you in the alleyway here"! :)

hnthrowaway0328 2y ago
Boeing is in the position of TBTF. The best can happen is a change of management but this doesn't solve anything. Good leadership does not grow like grass, and if the soil is corrupt none grows.
- andkenneth 2y ago
  IMO there needs to be personal criminal responsibility for safety related issues in an engineering org like this. We did this in New Zealand a few years back, you can get prosecuted and sent to prison for wilfully ignoring safety issues that cause serious injury or death, and that responsibility exists at every level up to the board.
SteveNuts 2y ago
I’m not knowledgeable in this area, is there any precedent or legal method for the US government unilaterally shutting down a large publicly traded conglomerate (purely as a hypothetical)? Not that I think they’d actually do it, I’m just curious if it’s even possible. I imagine they could bog them down with lawsuits but Boeing has a deep war chest and it would take many years.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  Yes, the US can nationalize a company. And it's happened before [1]. The current political climate means there's no appetite for any party to alienate actual or potential donors by doing something like this however. The one exception is banks where the FDIC can (and does) take over nonperforming banks all the time [2]. Think of it as eminent domain but for companies. [1]: https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-us https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-... [2]: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/in-brief/index.html https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/in-...
- brookst 2y ago
  Not just Boeing, all of their shareholders, including institutional ones. This would essentially be an edict that the stock price is now $0, modulo liquidation plans. But I don’t think you could declare the company too rotten to operate and also sell off its operations, so enterprise value would be best case. Oh, and many of its assets in the form of planes would presumably be instantly devalued/worthless. It’s a fun hypothetical (unless you work for Boeing), but I don’t think there’s a legal precedent or a good outcome even if it were possible.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    This would almost certainly fail legally on "taking" grounds. It also fails politically, since Boeing is a critical US defence contractor, and the US is not going to cut off its supply of parts for military aircraft. Killing Boeing is a fantasy.
  - ensignavenger 2y ago
    A more practical approach would be to fine them a huge amount of money after a fair investigation and trial. Then, when the company is forced to declare bankruptcy or is on the brink of it, the US Government could buy the company out of bankruptcy, replacing all executive management and run it for a enough time to ensure that corrections have been implemented, then the Government could take the company public again and divest itself.
- ItsBob 2y ago

sylware 2y ago

All this Boeing thing is now really seriously dangerous, up to life threatening. Something seems REALLY wrong. Maybe time to ramp up the type of "services" to understand what is going up there...

stephc_int13 2y ago

I sincerely hope this whole Boeing debacle will be used as wake-up call for other large corporations, or the general public. Most of them are not as safety-critical, but some of them are, thinking about Big Pharma and Chemical giants...

ItsBob 2y ago
Not sure what you mean: there have, to-date, been no repercussions for Boeing! They're getting away with all kinds of shit here! In an ideal world, companies with a massive safety-related function should have Warhammer 40k gun servitors hovering over the execs in the event they cut corners on safety with orders to empty the clip! Boeing are really a gov extension these days from what I can see.
- clarionbell 2y ago
  I vote for the servitors. Either that or an arco-flagellant on quick dispatch for the entire room. That aside, yes, Boeing and in EU Airbus are very much intertwined with government. It's inevitable when their products are strategically important and barriers to entry high. It's unfortunate, but that's how it is.
  - decafninja 2y ago
    Better to lobotomize the entire c-suite into servitors for tech heresy.
- itsanaccount 2y ago
  https://www.pewpewtactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Magazine-and-Clips-1536x1026.jpg https://www.pewpewtactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ma... Clips help fill internal magazines on older weapons. A servitor drone would have a magazine. Just being pendantic but I think you'd want "dump a mag into c-suite executives found guilty of corruption in safety critical industries." I'd also say since we don't currently have servitor drones we may have to do it ourselves. In an ideal world of course.

jmyeet 2y ago

It's a well known phenomenon that over time profits tend to fall [1]. Investors demand growth however so the consequence is obvious: all companies will tend to try and increase prices and/or cut costs to maintain profits. Raising prices tends to lower demand. It might be the case that a lower volume at higher margin leads to a higher gross profit but often it doesn't. So raising prices tends to be limited to where demand is ineleastic or you have or can construct a monopoly or enclosure of some kind. So most companies have to resort o cutting costs. This means suppressing wages and doing what Boeing has done in spades: using subcontracting to lower costs. Being is now in the FAFO phase of cost-cutting. Since around the time of the McDonnell-Douglas merger, the engineers lost and the accountants won. Once again, this Steve Jobs quote [2] is apropos. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKsbt5wii0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKsbt5wii0

resource_waste 2y ago
>So raising prices tends to be limited to where demand is ineleastic or you have or can construct a monopoly or enclosure of some kind. United States Medical Anyway, outside of that, this typically is a good thing. $200 flat screen tvs make it easier to live life. I remember moving out of my parents house and being amazed at how affordable the minimum products were. Yes offbrand TV with 50 hz, yes you $2/lb meat with 30% fat, yes your shower curtain was a pain in the butt to install... But making 19k/yr, I could afford it.
- GartzenDeHaes 2y ago
  > $200 flat screen tvs make it easier to live life. From what I've been reading, those cheap TV's won't last more than 3 years. So those poor people will end up spending more on TV's than if they bought an old-style expensive TV. Same thing with shoes, rent, cars, etc.
  - resource_waste 2y ago
    ? I am still using my 200 dollar tv from 2012. If you want to repeat a fiction story about boots, that's fine, but its still a fiction story.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I sure hope the investigation finds some fault with management for creating an environment where falsifying records was considered an option.

jl6 2y ago

Is this the kind of problem that is being uncovered because of the extra scrutiny that Boeing is currently under? To put it another way, is this the kind of problem that is endemic across industry and we’re only finding out now because we are taking the time to look? One can only imagine the horrors lurking in industries lucky enough not to have had any famous failures recently.

yareal 2y ago
Boeing used to have a safety culture and and engineering excellence culture. That changed over the past twenty to thirty years as leadership rotted the company and monetized that rot by choosing to skip safety and engineering in favor of profits.
cjk2 2y ago
I work in a different sector. If we built planes it'd be raining bodies. If you go looking you will find. And it's almost never pretty stuff. There is however a lot of paperwork filled in that says everything is fine.
_ache_ 2y ago
You are inverting cause and consequence. It's because Boeing has had so many failures that it has come under particular scrutiny. Failures which, from a statistical point of view, suggest that there may be a cause to look for. Other companies do not have as many (and as basic) problems.
nolok 2y ago
Depends what you mean by industry. If you mean the US big airliner industry, then Boeing is essentially it, so yes, And I presume it comes directly from the FAA delegating so much of their job to Boeing meaning Boeing had to inspect itself. The you had the bad deal grand fathered between USA and EU : FAA inspect Boeing planes, EASA has to accept that certification without checking by themselves. Airbus need to be certified by the EASA, they have much less if any delegated authority for that (though they do pay a lot into that, there is a difference between you need to pay into your regulator and you are your own regulator through your own employees). And then they need to separately be certified by Boeing. This means the surface area for Boeing screwing around is much, much larger. I don't doubt there are flaws if we looked into airbus assembly, but I highly doubt they would be systemic and part of a larger screwed process like what is being found at Boeing.

yareal 2y ago

I believe it's time to nationalize Boeing, remove their leadership and replace them with engineers. The people who run the company should be the people who know how to build planes. It's in our economic and industrial and defense interest to have a well run, high quality aerospace manufacturer.

QuarterReptile 2y ago
>it's time to nationalize Boeing I seem to have lost the thread between that and > The people who run the company should be the people who know how to build planes. It's in our economic and industrial and defense interest to have a well run, high quality aerospace manufacturer. As a reminder, the leadership competitions in bureaucracy select for loyalty to the bureaucracy, not the bureaucracy's stated mission. Exceptions are rare and fleeting.
- _ache_ 2y ago
  I may suggest that the link between the two statements is exactly to escape from the trap you talked about. If the leadership is elected by the state rather than by internal competition, you don't end up with a group of people who are loyal to themselves but with a meritocratic leadership.
- 6510 2y ago
  I liked the analogy with hyenas and Saint Bernard's. The Saint Bernard is high-maintenance, require lots of care and attention. They are very loyal but need to constantly be told what to do. The hyena is highly opportunistic, they see and hear everything and need to be monitored constantly or they run off with your company. They over-sell everything specially themselves. The Saint Bernard's all need their own pen or they cant write, if there is one pen in the building all of the hyenas can write.
_ache_ 2y ago
Yeah, but actually, that nationalize part isn't something in trend in USA, isn't it ? Gwynne Shotwell, engineer and COO of SpaceX maybe considered from the job of CEO of Boeing. It seems to me more USA-ish move than nationalize Boeing. Don't know witch one is the best for Boeing in the end.

swasheck 2y ago

really excited to be flying one these in 36 hours

fransje26 2y ago
Oh, there might be some exciting in-flight moments! I read that Boeing's new natural ventilation system was quite breathtaking.. And, if you are in the right seat, you might get a better outside view!

buster 2y ago

Interesting read regarding "missed inspections": https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

langsoul-com 2y ago

Feels like Boeing is trying to shift the blame on the individual instead of their incentive and corporate culture about missed inspections. Its not the company, but rather x individual that falsified their safety report. Don't worry, we'll fire them and everyone can forget about this. Is the feeling I'm getting.

ActionHank 2y ago
They remember that VW "it was a lone developer" play.
- ruph123 2y ago
  Then they would have forgotten that former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn was indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges.
  - Drunk_Engineer 2y ago
    That was 4 years ago, and the case has not gone to trial.
    - ruph123 2y ago
      Trial is starting this year: https://apnews.com/article/germany-volkswagen-diesel-scandal-winterkorn-trial-5eac8ed0b501426a912e3c7524e3874e https://apnews.com/article/germany-volkswagen-diesel-scandal...
- agilob 2y ago
  who was charged and went to prison
  - onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
    Also, that one bank employee (Kareem Serageldin) that went to jail over the financial crisis. Don't worry guys, we got him.

karaterobot 2y ago

> Stocker said the company would “celebrate” the employee who spoke up. My advice to this employee: run.

proee 2y ago

How many organizations of similar size bamboozle regulators? When a fast food restaurant is responsible for an ecoli outbreak, regulars are quick to point out broken processes in the organization that need fixed. It's a bit of reactionary theater, where both sides are playing a game to show that they are not the source of the problem. If you are the regulator, there is plenty of motivation to show the world you are doing your job by pointing to missteps in a process. If you are the offender, there is plenty of motivation to concede to "some" failures in process, cut your losses, and show that you are improving. Everyone, if you could just submit your TPS reports on time that would be great.

avgDev 2y ago
Regulators are generally blinder when it comes to huge organizations. Boeing is a huge DOD contractor. They have a direct line to people at the top of the US govt., just like other huge organizations. It is a big fish, and it is hard to fry. US govt. discussed shut downs during COVID with largest organizations in the US before they even occurred. Some knew they were coming before anything was announced. It isn't some kind of conspiracy either, most governments will "care" more about the biggest contractors and businesses in their nation.

interdrift 2y ago

Always remember that one guy testifying that he saw employees jumping with their feet on airplane parts to insert them in somewhere. LOL.

croes 2y ago

If companies are people in the US after how many crimes does a company get a life sentence or death penalty?

belter 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40278391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40278391

ziofill 2y ago

For a split second I thought how ironic there were 787 missed inspections.