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Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air

hn8305823
109 replies
23h41m

He said the pilot procedure the FAA approved as an interim solution — urging pilots to make sure to turn off the system when icing conditions dissipate to avoid overheating that within five minutes could seriously damage the structure of the nacelle — is inadequate given the serious potential danger.

This is insane

What are the chances that even a very well trained and experienced major US airline crew would forget to turn of the engine anti-ice within 5 minutes of non-icing conditions? Greater than zero for sure.

ahoka
53 replies
23h19m

During the last MAX fiasco, I said to someone that if there is a button you have to push every five minutes for the plane not to explode, then failing to do so would be “pilot error”, instead of a gross design failure. It turns out this is not a joke…

RangerScience
39 replies
23h17m

This is literally a joke on the excellent board game “Space Alert” - someone has to wiggle a mouse every so often or everything on your Sitting Duck Class Explorer turns off.

operatingthetan
36 replies
22h5m

This is a real thing in modern trains:

The device sounds a warning after 25 seconds of inactivity by an engineer. If the engineer fails to respond to the warning tone within 15 seconds, the system applies the brakes and stops the train.

https://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Alerter-system-preve...

jerf
19 replies
21h47m

That's still prompt -> response. This is a discussion about mandatory responses to no prompt at all.

Although on reflection, that undersells the level of stupidity being proposed here. The pilots need to not only respond to no prompt, but be actively monitoring a condition changing state so that they can then perform the unprompted action.

So, in all seriousness... by what algorithm are the pilots performing this assessment that is not something a computer can perform? How on Earth is it not cheaper and faster to add that to the system than petition a government agency for an exemption? What are all the computers on a plane even for other than monitoring state changes and performing actions in response? Even high-assurance, safety-critical coding should be able to outpace a Federal bureaucracy on something like this comfortably.

nostrademons
16 replies
21h3m

Boeing is no longer capable of building safe planes.

If you are no longer capable of building safe planes, your next best option is to petition the government to accept unsafe planes.

AnimalMuppet
15 replies
20h57m

That's only the next best option in the very short term. Boeing will suffer significant damage if there's another Max fiasco - more than they did from the first one. Probably much more.

If your company can't build safe planes, the real "next best option" is to fix your company.

gambiting
6 replies
20h29m

What damage can they actually suffer though? Boeing is a strategic asset of the US government, they would never allow any harm to come to it. Some heads would roll for sure, maybe even the government would step in and assume direct control of certain parts of the company, but it's not like it would go out of business, or like companies would cancel all of their orders and buy Airbuses instead - they could, but again, the US government would never allow that to happen, either through direct monetary action or promises and guarantees that whatever the worry is won't ever happen again.

eastbound
3 replies
20h20m

What damage can they actually suffer though?

Loss of market share. As in, customers actively looking at the type of aircraft when they book a ticket. Airplanes becoming reluctant to ordering Boeing.

At this time, every $1 you invest in making it known what Boeing does since 15 years, results in $2 or $3 of loss of market share for Boeing. Absolutely the time to buy ads to promote articles about Boeing.

I would actually trust Comac more than Boeing, as Comac has something to prove, whereas Boeing has been proven to crash planes and bribe the FAA.

traverseda
2 replies
15h45m

Can someone make a list of unsafe Boeing planes?

nostrademons
0 replies
14h27m

The 737 MAX and 787 have both had significant issues. Basically it's anything introduced after the merger with McDonnell Douglass in 1997.

eastbound
0 replies
12h29m

Boeing’s processes, not planes, are unsafe.

In 2013 they received frames (the circular structures that make the fuselage) which instead of being machined, has been created manually. Voids were all in the wrong place because the workers had taken the blueprints symmetrically.

Did they ditch the frames? Of course not? They remade the cuts so that it fits upside down! And soldered the I-beam parts that had been cut! Result: The circular frames, which are a critical structural component, have twice as many gaps and holes and soldered sections than the designed piece.

Bulkheads, circular frames, MCAS… It’s appalling engineering practices.

And the dinner party system with FAA, introduced by Mac Donnell’s practices when it was bought over, has to stop. They should not be friends in real life.

tivert
1 replies
20h19m

What damage can they actually suffer though? Boeing is a strategic asset of the US government, they would never allow any harm to come to it.

Boeing's staff and plant are strategic assets, its executives and shareholders aren't. The US government could totally let harm come the latter group.

p1esk
0 replies
19h48m

US government is much more broken than Boeing.

nostrademons
5 replies
20h19m

It's usually not possible to fix a company that is broken, simply because of Gall's Law. ("A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.") Large companies are complex systems; they develop their own set of internal incentives, communications architectures, org politics, membership tests, etc. Over time, these incentives inevitably adapt themselves toward maintaining the organization rather than delivering the product or service that is the reason why the organization exists. At that point, everyone who actually wants to deliver the product leaves, leaving an organization consisting solely of people whose full-time job is maintaining their position in the organization.

Ask yourself: would you take a position at Boeing trying to "fix the company"?

The only way out of this is to poach the few remaining employees that still have technical knowledge, setup a new company that refuses to employ everyone with a vested interest in Boeing, and take their market. This is hard for aerospace because of the sheer complexity of the product and the baseline quality levels needed to deliver a safe experience.

zmgsabst
3 replies
18h53m

Ask yourself: would you take a position at Boeing trying to "fix the company"?

As an executive with guaranteed $xM in pay over a few years?

Sure — if I fail, I’ll just use that position as a stepping stone to my next executive role.

Why wouldn’t I take a shot at something positive, when there’s little to no downside?

nostrademons
2 replies
18h17m

Are you actually fixing the company then, or just extracting value while maintaining the organization?

This is why we have the world that we do.

zmgsabst
1 replies
17h24m

I would genuinely try to fix it, based on descriptions by my mentors who were Boeing engineers.

I believe the board and executives would genuinely want me to fix it.

But it may nevertheless be impossible due to organizational mechanics, entrenched bureaucracy, short-sighted shareholders, etc.

I was just pointing out that it’s ridiculous to pretend nobody would want the job because it’s likely to fail when there’s only upside, for both yourself and the company. A literal win-win.

Implying there’s something negative in my comment because it’s easy to be cheaply cynical (and the cheap cynicism in the comment I originally replied to) is what’s actually wrong with the world — and why things are so bad.

Who gives up on something that only has upsides without even trying?

nostrademons
0 replies
14h29m

Your line "Sure — if I fail, I’ll just use that position as a stepping stone to my next executive role" indicated a certain cynicism in your own post, so I was reflecting that in my response.

So here's the more detailed sincere response, based on experience working in a similar large, similarly dysfunctional technology company (and also knowing people who spent several years at Boeing specifically):

It is usually not possible for a chief executive to fix a company. The reason is simply sheer complexity. A company of 100,000 people has potentially 100,000! (factorial) different working relationships within it. In practice it's less because not everyone communicates with everybody else, but even a small department of 100 people has more different relationships than anyone can possibly keep track of. No one executive is going to know every single employee, every team, every project. And without them having those personal relationships, they don't have enough trust to convince people to alter their behavior.

If the company is in trouble in the first place, that means that the way they do business is no longer adapted to the marketplace. So you need to get the company to make changes. But if you root cause each individual problem, you find that the company is fractally fucked up. The employee is usually acting according to the incentives available to them; if they did things differently, they would fail to get the cooperation needed to accomplish their goals (at best) or lose their job (at worse). And that's the key part: in a big company, achieving any goal, regardless of how small, requires the cooperation of many different people. In a normal functioning company things mostly work because these habits of cooperation grew up in good times, working culture & processes adapted themselves to the activities that actually made the company money, and so when people just do their jobs good things basically result. But as the company grows and ages, it ossifies. Over time they want to do things like introduce a new jetliner, but find that the right combination of people with the right skillsets to do things like make engine nacelles that don't explode no longer exist.

This is why advice for turnaround CEOs is "get the wrong people off the bus and the right people on the bus". And they frequently hire outsiders, or folks from much earlier in the company's history. Their first task is to stabilize finances. Their next task is to identify the parts of the company that are still functional, then double down on them (often made harder because these folks were often laid off as part of stabilizing finances). Their next task is to sell off or lay off all the folks that are embedded in organizations that are no longer serving the company's purposes. Remember that there are > 100K employees, and you're building a product of exceptional engineering complexity, and that nobody knows everything the company is doing. It's pretty hard to have enough visibility into the company's product, engineering, supplier relationships, employee base, finances, etc. to do this correctly.

DiggyJohnson
0 replies
19h1m

I did, and it was one of the worst periods of my career. And I went in knowing it was going to be challenging, I wasn’t naive, it was just worse than I expected.

amputect
0 replies
19h58m

Fixing the company sounds good, but you have to remember that the people who would be fixing it are the people who got it to this point in the first place.

I think it's very likely that nobody currently at Boeing has the ability and willingness to make the kinds of changes they would need to make in order to become a functional company again, because Boeing has spent over two decades systematically purging senior engineers from management and leadership in order to become another crappy company full of empty suits with MBAs, who don't understand the product they're making, and don't care if they're literally killing people and the company is rotting out from under them as long as they can monetize the rot to make their quarterly numbers.

0cf8612b2e1e
0 replies
20h28m

Not sure about that. I suspect that Boeing is considered a domestic strategic asset and is not allowed to die. No matter the incompetence.

vitiral
0 replies
21h7m

I agree, but you underestimate the cost of software in "safety critical" applications.

I've heard stories of cases where development orgs were given the option of changing a line of code or re designing the hardware. They of course redesigned the hardware.

operatingthetan
0 replies
21h36m

Yes it's different, but similar to the comment I replied to in the sense that the machine just turns off if the user is idle for a time.

david422
3 replies
21h57m

Ok, I don't know much about trains, but it seems like if they can build this kind of system then they could also build a system that only allows trains to go as fast as track "speed limits".

ygra
0 replies
21h7m
TylerE
0 replies
21h55m

They have. There's only so much you can do. Crew have been known to throw breakers to disable systems they find "annoying".

Symbiote
0 replies
20h13m

That's pretty much standard on European high speed trains, and many lines at slower speeds.

BrandoElFollito
2 replies
19h55m

This is too ensure that the driver is still there and hopefully watching. If they do not react then it means they are not fully abled. So the train stops.

This is very good.

The correct analogy would have been: if the driver did not press the button then the train accelerates until they do. Not good.

patmorgan23
0 replies
18h11m

Or even more accurately the engine explodes and the entire train derails it's self.

operatingthetan
0 replies
17h49m

I made no analogy.

tgv
1 replies
21h57m

Except that's the complete opposite.

fsckboy
0 replies
21h36m

depends whether you consider trains rudimentary sentients or not. If the train fails to follow procedure to alert the gut bacteria/engineer every so many minutes, the train runs a higher risk of running into something because the engineer is asleep or incapacitated.

midasuni
1 replies
20h19m

If the user fails the train stops.

If the use fails the plane crashes.

Two very different problems.

operatingthetan
0 replies
17h51m

I was responding to a comment about a board game, I did not compare a train to a plane.

tialaramex
0 replies
19h47m

And in large ships, the Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm System or BNWAS.

Over night most normal operations cease, so it's quiet on the bridge. But an officer is on duty to keep watch, because the ship is still moving, often relatively fast, and it needs a human to obey pre-existing route plan decisions, observe changing conditions, stay alert to other vessels and so on. However, the bridge (on a modern large ship) is warm and dark and at night tired humans in warm dark rooms will sleep.

So BNWAS will (if operating correctly) periodically need to be "nudged" to show that the officer on watch is awake and somewhat paying attention. If they do nothing for a while the BNWAS will alert them and if they ignore that it will eventually alarm critical crew, often the Master ("Captain") of the ship or other senior officers who are asleep in their cabins.

Now of course nobody wants to leave a nice dream to discover that instead of your teenage girlfriend agreeing to go on that picnic you never got to that sound is their boss, very angrily demanding to know what the fuck you're doing curled up by the radar console. So unfortunately sometimes after a serious incident (e.g. cargo ship has "decided" to wait right next to a small island a few miles from the usual route from 4am until midday, and then when it gets to a dock it seems very smashed up at the bottom as though it was grounded and had to wait until higher tides lifted it clear...) we find the BNWAS has been disabled crudely (it's not as though ship's crew tend to be IT experts)...

But this is a completely different scenario. The BNWAS is not something which causes a disaster if you forget to react, it's an alarm to prevent such disasters which would otherwise be commonplace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_navigational_watch_alar...

rswail
0 replies
6h14m

Trains have had a deadman switch for literally centuries now.

ranting-moth
0 replies
21h53m

Back in they day sailors would stick a lit fag between their fingers when they were sailing home from day of fishing.

kergonath
0 replies
21h2m

Even in not-so-modern trains. At least here, a dead man button or pedal has been mandatory on trains that could have a single driver since 1942.

foooorsyth
0 replies
21h58m

Dead man’s (safety) switch

zacharycohn
0 replies
23h14m

Technically the screen saver/lock screen comes on and someone has log back in before anyone can take any actions.

cmrdporcupine
0 replies
21h30m

Like the "the button" in the TV series Lost

aeturnum
9 replies
20h20m

There was a great paper[1] I read about the human components in complex technical systems which argues that one of the roles of the human is to take the blame when the entire system fails. This does real valuable work for the companies involved and helps them avoid needing to answer the most uncomfortable questions.

[1] Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human-Robot Interaction by Madeline Clare Elish

jacquesm
4 replies
18h51m

This goes for self driving cars just the same.

TaylorAlexander
2 replies
18h38m

Yeah it leads to real problems for fully driverless cars, as there is no longer a human to blame.

Also note that blaming the human has been Tesla's strategy for avoiding responsibility on their software drive system failures.

dev1n
1 replies
17h6m

Most car - pedestrian crashes in the USA never end up with the driver at fault. Not sure this will change when cars are autonomous.

TaylorAlexander
0 replies
16h36m

Well I am talking about all crashes, not just car-pedestrian crashes. For example Teslas crash in to other cars and then the company blames the human driver.

aeturnum
0 replies
18h48m

An example used in the paper are the human drivers of Uber self-driving cars - one of which killed a pedestrian in Arizona.

jsight
2 replies
17h7m

The flip side to this is that every system involving software seems to inevitably devolve into a situation where the human is expected to no longer be responsible.

Oh, you floored it while the car was pointed at the wall? It has cameras, why didn't the car disable the go pedal?

This is happening more and more with cars, and it seems inevitable that it will happen in other spaces as well, as software is expected to protect us from ourselves.

underwater
1 replies
16h11m

There is a big difference between software being the safety net for humans, and humans being the safety net for software.

jsight
0 replies
15h23m

In the extreme, yes. But it looks like it is actually a continuum, with a shockingly blurry line forming the threshold.

jxf
0 replies
18h19m

"Moral crumple zones" is an incredible description.

newbalance
0 replies
18h54m

Made me think of that one Lost episode with the button

anticensor
0 replies
6h48m

Dead man's switch, but when not pressed in time, ensures failure, instead of preventing it.

Lev1a
0 replies
21h21m

if there is a button you have to push every five minutes for the plane not to explode

Instantly reminded me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifa

gopher_space
12 replies
23h1m

Someone in the article comments said a pilot might be dipping into and out of icing conditions throughout a flight. You'd need to remember each time and if you forget once you'll lose both engines.

The latest Tesla features manual window wipers and if you don't use them right the car explodes.

LegitShady
8 replies
21h11m

What does using them right mean?

roselan
4 replies
20h52m

If you turn them on when it's not raining, it explodes.

bluecalm
3 replies
20h38m

If you forgot to turn them off when it stops raining is more apt comparison except it's easier to detect no rain than no frosting conditions.

pas
2 replies
19h8m

it seems easy to detect overheating, frost or no frost, no?

gopher_space
0 replies
18h2m

I think the main issue is that every other plane does in fact detect and handle overheating automatically.

TylerE
0 replies
17h38m

When you’re 6 inches from a continual fireball?

ldoughty
1 replies
20h48m

Simple.

1. Wait for people to report a problem 2. Inform users that they were doing it wrong, it was always intended for you to do it the other way

E.g. how to hold your iPhone.

selimthegrim
0 replies
18h12m

Also see Omnipod with boluses recently

kergonath
0 replies
20h31m

Depends on the latest OTA.

nomel
2 replies
18h59m

The latest Tesla features manual window wipers and if you don't use them right the car explodes.

Reference?

paulddraper
0 replies
17h53m

I think just an analogy.

jaredhallen
0 replies
17h49m

I believe that was meant as a metaphor. The 737 MAX being the Tesla. In other words, "what if..."

calamari4065
9 replies
20h27m

I can come up with several methods to solve this problem at the hardware level.

Slap a temperature sensor on/in/near the heater

Monitor current through the heater for temperature coefficient response

Capacitive sensing of ice on the heater

A timer that shuts off the heater after some time and a buzzer to alert the crew

You could even have a thermal fuse with a manual time-limited override

Honestly there's so many easy ways to prevent thermal runaway that creating a situation where THE ENGINE FALLS OFF is inexcusably negligent.

My space heater has no less than three independent, redundant safeties. As does my clothes iron, my coffee pot, my slow cooker. It really is not that complicated.

ShadowBanThis01
4 replies
18h58m

Remember that Boeing was too stupid to put an odd number of pitot tubes on their planes, so the computer could have determined which airspeed indication was crazy. They put TWO.

Matt Stoller wrote a compelling article asserting that the breakdown at Boeing resulted from the breakdown of the separation between their military and civilian divisions: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-coming-boeing-bailout

If you think about it, civilian standards must be way higher than military ones; you're talking about millions of people per year who can't bail out of a crashing plane.

zmgsabst
3 replies
18h46m

The breakdown came from trying to crush their engineering organization for costing too much/being unionized — and particularly firing the mid-career engineers, who would by now be the missing senior/principal engineers.

MCAS is a reflection of their systems integration engineers not being the caliber and experience they need: it was obviously a defective design.

ShadowBanThis01
2 replies
16h30m

Not to mention that it was a fraud to begin with, trying to skirt pilot-training rules by having (monumentally incompetent) software tweak the controls of a perverted airframe design to make it imitate previous 737s.

If they had done what they needed to do and designed a new plane from scratch, those people wouldn't be dead.

OR if they'd simply acknowledged the changed characteristics of the plane, struck deals with purchasers to subsidize training expenses, and let pilots fly it themselves... those people wouldn't be dead.

Boeing's recent behavior, as reported by this article, warrants further disgust and ought to be featured in the mainstream news.

hn_go_brrrrr
1 replies
15h57m

If they had designed a new plane from scratch, those people wouldn't have died because the new airframe wouldn't have been flying yet. Check back again in 2030.

ShadowBanThis01
0 replies
14h14m

Still a win.

benhurmarcel
1 replies
18h2m

It’s not an electric heater, it blows engine core air from the compressor into the inlet lip.

And sensing icing on an inlet isn’t as simple as you make it out to be.

smrq
0 replies
1h8m

So humans are supposed to be able to do it (within five minutes) with the sensor data already available to them, but it's not easy to make a sensor do it automatically?

Maybe this is overly optimistic, but I'm confident they could figure out something if they wanted to.

SoftTalker
1 replies
19h58m

And one or more of those is probably going to be the long-term fix. However any change like this also needs FAA testing and certification, and enough design and review to be sure the changes don't introduce other new problems, all of which will take some time.

pas
0 replies
19h7m

yes, good, time for the FAA to force Boeing to think ahead

wolverine876
7 replies
22h18m

Boeing's main argument seems to be that, even if the pilot forgets, the overall risk isn't worth the remediation:

In its petition to the FAA, Boeing argues the breakup of the engine nacelle is “extremely improbable” and that an exemption will not reduce safety.

“The 737 MAX has been in service since 2017 and has accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours. In that time, there have been no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to overheating of the engine nacelle inlet structure,” the filing states.

dtgriscom
2 replies
20h18m

no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to...

Wow, that's a great phrase. "No reported cases" is a serious weasel-phrase, and "parts departing aircraft" is much easier to take than "things falling off planes."

notatoad
1 replies
18h23m

"no reported cases" is a lot less of a weasel-phrase in an industry that has mandatory reporting of these things.

pi-e-sigma
0 replies
16h43m

No, it's not because it doesn't define who it would be reported to. So it could be not reported to FAA, or Boing, or a person responsible for this specific design or anybody really, perfectly shedding any responsibility whatsoever.

jbverschoor
1 replies
22h10m

Who forgot to file the reports?

falserum
0 replies
22h0m

Mail from pacific ocean floor is slow or it’s a separate case?

tim333
0 replies
16h52m

A bit more info from a pilot on r/aviation

I fly the MAX. That switch is left on all the time by accident. If it was a catastrophic issue we certainly would already know. https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/18z8mk6/737_max_d...

which I guess is reassuring in a way.

WesolyKubeczek
0 replies
21h47m

“extremely improbable”

Read: happens at least twice a week

siva7
7 replies
21h52m

I wonder how the families of the 346 victims must feel reading years later such a headline like "Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air"

SpicyLemonZest
6 replies
21h37m

Probably pretty worked up, which is why the headline was phrased that way. If they said something like "Boeing seeks safety exemption for MAX 7 anti-ice system", it would communicate more information about the contents, but readers would be less likely to get mad and thus less likely to click.

siva7
2 replies
21h29m

I'm not sure that the actual content would ease up the situation as a "pilot failure" likely to happen in said procedure would end up catastrophic.

SpicyLemonZest
1 replies
20h41m

Boeing's argument is that it's not likely to happen, as it hasn't happened in the 6.5 million flight hours with other MAX models for which this procedure is approved.

kosolam
0 replies
19h7m

Which don’t have this problem because the material used for the engine pod is metal and not fiber like with the uncertified models. This fiber is breaking up after five minutes of heating

JohnFen
1 replies
19h16m

Maybe? I like to think that the people affected are paying more attention than others, and aren't stupid. They'd know that "Boeing seeks safety exemption for MAX 7 anti-ice system" means "Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules".

sebzim4500
0 replies
18h10m

If I had read your headline I would have expected they were asking for an exemption so that the system could be used, not so that the plane could fly at all.

I think the one they went with was much better.

worik
0 replies
20h42m

Good use of headline editing then

StephenSmith
7 replies
23h37m

How obvious is it that the plane has entered non-icing conditions?

sokoloff
5 replies
23h28m

It's obvious enough. They have a total-air-temp displayed on the FMC and a TAT above 10°C OR not in visible moisture OR SAT* below -40°C is a good enough proxy for "not in icing conditions".

The problem isn't knowing whether or not you're in possible icing conditions if you think to ask the question, but rather reliably remembering to evaluate it every single time you enter and exit possible icing conditions.

* SAT - static air temp (air temp before the ram rise).

wkat4242
3 replies
23h11m

That's not obvious. Something with critical damage potential shouldn't be hidden in a reading in an obscure display page where a value has to be evaluated by several rules.

It should be a caution light or something at least.

sokoloff
2 replies
23h8m

I'm not advocating that Boeing is proposing a sensible path here; I think they're not.

But ATPs don't have any trouble evaluating "am I in potential icing conditions?" as they've been doing it for one to many thousands of hours previously.

wkat4242
1 replies
23h3m

I understand. It's just that most accidents have not just one cause but a whole chain of them. Something small happens that causes the pilots to be distracted trying to fix it, meanwhile ignoring the elephant in the room or forgetting a 'routine check'. The flight deck isn't always a relaxed place and this is when these things can get out of hand so easily.

This kind of mistake has been made so often and lives have been paid that I find it crazy that it's still being proposed.

cratermoon
0 replies
22h41m

In the "swiss cheese model" of accident causation this design is more hole than cheese.

ledauphin
0 replies
22h41m

based on the article, it doesn't sound like this has anything specifically to do with temperature - the issue is more about whether there is moisture in the air.

If it were just a temperature thing, you'd think it could be automated, but I don't think that's really the main thing they're dealing with here.

In theory this means switching the system off when you exit the clouds.

This is usually pretty noticeable, but maybe less so at night, since you might be breaking out into a pocket or a clear layer between other layers, without visibly seeing much of anything outside.

I would hesitate to comment on the feasibility of this beyond what the interviewed persons have said, precisely because they're not clarifying (to the readers in any case) what the actual thresholds here are. And the interviewees don't seem convinced that this is a reasonable/safe requirement.

paulddraper
0 replies
17h52m

Obvious from the instrumentation.

But easy to forget to check the instrumentation.

tim333
3 replies
18h34m

Yeah, all kettles in the UK which start in price from about £8 have a bimetallic strip based device to disconnect the power if the thing tries overheating because it's got no water in or such like. You'd think something like that would not be so hard or expensive to do.

TylerE
2 replies
17h36m

Place that kettle on top of a blast furnace and see how easy it is. Remember we’re talking about something attached to an operating jet engine.

Edit: Also depending on altitude ambient temperature can vary over a range of several hundred degrees - it gets really really cold at 40,000ft.

swells34
1 replies
17h31m

To be fair on both your point and the parent comment, it is both a difficult problem, and one that engineers at Boeing are capable of solving (and likely already solved). The issue here isn't an engineering one, it's a management one.

tim333
0 replies
16h44m

Looking it up the heating system uses bleed air from the engine so probably isn't as easy to control. On the other hand it just has to stop the thing getting hot enough to damage carbon composite which probably isn't anything extreme temperature wise. If you limited it to say 80C it would probably be ok to stop ice and also not fry the composite.

hosh
1 replies
18h37m

Boeing got taken over by McDonnell Douglas business types, and engineering excellence is no longer the main thing there. This seems like how the situation would naturally play out.

(I hear from the rumor mill, something similar is happening at Google).

callamdelaney
0 replies
15h29m

A very brief look at almost any open source google code could tell you that

exabrial
0 replies
21h47m

you should probably not read the rest of an aviation manual then. You ought to see what happens if you leave an air valve in a certain position too long.

epolanski
0 replies
19h1m

Not only that, we talking alredy heavy and tense situations you don't want the crew to give yet another item to check.

janice1999
55 replies
23h38m

I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346 people so far. So many issues (and related cover-ups) stem from the massive compromises made so Boeing could quickly launch a flawed modified plane instead of a new design because Airbus scared their management.

kevin_b_er
22 replies
20h28m

This needs to be in *management* ethics. It was the *management* that ignored warnings. The "compromises" were demanded by *management*.

Boeing is not an engineering culture, it is an MBA culture. This is the result.

It is clear, by deadly example, that Boeing *management* is not capable of running a company that produces a safe plane. It is, after all, difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against the greed of Boeing's management.

KingOfCoders
15 replies
12h52m

"All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against the greed of Boeing's management. "

Sure managers are guilty.

But managers did not write the code. "Engineers" did.

As long as there are engineers writing that code (also see VW and #Dieselgate) there will be managers who do this. Engineers need to take a stand and don't do everything. Like professionals. "He made me do it" is not an excuse for hundreds of dead people.

knifie_spoonie
9 replies
12h37m

Managers are the ones with the authority to tell engineers what to do. If an engineer refuses, they'll simply be replaced with someone more pliable.

See the Challenger disaster for a high profile example.

uxp8u61q
3 replies
10h19m

They're just following orders, is that it?

knifie_spoonie
1 replies
8h3m

Since when did we start apologizing for people in positions of authority forcing others to bad things?

uxp8u61q
0 replies
1h55m

"Forcing"? Are they holding a gun to the devs' heads and "forcing" them to implement safety circumvention features? I doubt it.

KingOfCoders
0 replies
8h29m

We Germans know how to do that!

KingOfCoders
2 replies
11h20m

"replaced with someone more pliable."

If I don't rob the bank, someone else will!

Yes, and then the other engineer is responsible for the dead people, not you. But if your job is more important than other peoples lifes, I guess, yes, you do as you have been told.

knifie_spoonie
1 replies
8h4m

"If I don't rob the bank, someone else will!"

Or maybe we stop people from trying to force others to rob banks. Nip the problem in the bud.

Why do you want to let managers get away with toxic behavior and then blame the subordinates?

KingOfCoders
0 replies
6h46m

Me: "Sure managers are guilty."

You: "Why do you want to let managers get away with toxic behavior."

oefnak
1 replies
11h39m

Okay, then that replacement should also refuse or go to jail.

knifie_spoonie
0 replies
8h7m

Crazy idea, but maybe the manager trying to force engineers to do these things should be held accountable.

tremon
2 replies
3h29m

As long as writing code is not an actual engineering profession with the associated authority and liability -- no, you're wrong. The code was not written by (certified) engineers, it was written by programmers. And programmers do not have the authority to refuse their manager's orders.

snakeyjake
1 replies
3h10m

And programmers do not have the authority to refuse their manager's orders.

All free people have the authority to refuse their manager's orders.

But people like money.

reticulan
0 replies
2h8m

They don't like money, they need it to survive (e.g. to not lose employer provided health insurance)

roughly
1 replies
10h44m

I generally agree that one has an ethical duty to be accountable for the output of one’s work, but I also worked with a fellow at a previous job who stuck around long after I’d pulled the chute because his daughter had a medical issue and he couldn’t risk losing insurance. It’s not always that cut and dry, and until we’ve got UBI, universal health care, and a reasonable immigration system, the blame is and must remain on the managers first and foremost.

KingOfCoders
0 replies
10h26m

"UBI, universal health care"

I have UBI.

janice1999
2 replies
19h10m

Agreed. I only mention engineering students as my only experience with ethics classes are in that domain. However it's still a good example for engineers, particularly how the design failures resulted in deaths, the role of whistleblowers and how disastrous self-certification can be.

paledot
1 replies
17h8m

I would be utterly shocked if any MBA program in the world had a mandatory ethics component, for all that an unethical MBA is in a position to kill many more people than an unethical engineer.

dbattaglia
0 replies
5h41m

I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some ethics classes. I doubt any class is going to have instill ethics in someone who has none.

numpad0
1 replies
13h5m

I've seen fiduciary duty to shareholders in publicly traded companies and how it force managers to chase unsustainable immediate gains repeated as cliche, template, criticisms in this types of topics. Privately owned companies of course aren't much different OTOH, so personally it feels to me that incentive design that rewards ethical corporate behaviors is an open question passed from the modern era to the post-modern world(or is that one label behind this one? I'm totally out of my depth).

klempner
0 replies
10h23m

I will remark that, excluding cases where some idiot is offering several times what the company is worth, it is rare that the fiduciary duty issue would force the management of a company to choose unsustainable immediate gains.

The value of a company's equity is based on the net present value of future returns. That means that while short term earnings are important, so are earnings in the moderately distant future. (depending on risk free interest rates)

If a company like Boeing were properly managed, they'd give suitable priority to engineering excellence, at least to the point of not having critical failures like these, because that's core to their ability to compete with Airbus/etc in the future.

The real issue you're concerned about is that it is very difficult to align the interests of corporate managers with the interests of the company. It is relatively easy to align senior management with short term stock prices, but it is difficult for the public to figure out that the gains they see (less engineering cost, faster turnaround time, etc) come at the expense of the longer term viability of the company, so the former gets priced into the short term stock price (and so executive compensation) and the latter does not.

pella
0 replies
9h37m

it is an MBA culture.

The MBA program should include more ethics courses and perhaps an adapted version of the Hippocratic Oath.

--> MBA Oath : https://mbaoath.org/

pengaru
14 replies
23h9m

Same, and I wonder if it'll share a chapter with Tesla's prematurely shipped autonomous features, related deaths, and the dishonest messaging surrounding it.

Considering the MCAS[0] failures were largely software defects in an autonomous system, seems plausible to me...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...

sebzim4500
9 replies
17h45m

In the case of Tesla they make the argument that the safety features have saved far more than they have injured/killed. Inexplicably, there is no federal agency that actually checks these things.

In this case I don't see how you could make the same argument, clearly the new planes were not safer than the old ones or they wouldn't have been grounded.

tw04
7 replies
15h7m

Based on my experience with Tesla’s autonomous driving software, there is no planet on which that’s true. It is quite literally worse than anyone I can imagine driving unless they’re high, drunk, texting, and doing 30+mph over the speed limit. I’ve come across an unfortunate number of drunk drivers in my time on this earth driving and I can say I’ve never once seen or heard of a drunk slamming on their brakes at 70mph because of a tree shadow across the road. I’ve personally experienced and seen someone else’s Tesla do it on multiple occasions.

I can anticipate and avoid a drunk driver in many situations. I’d never expect that behavior out of any human driver.

ascorbic
2 replies
9h59m

I had a Tesla with FSD which I never used again after it pulled out in front of another car on the motorway. Only me grabbing control and pulling us back into lane prevented us being rear-ended. My inferior human reactions were enough for that. Even the regular autopilot lane-keeping was useless on anything except nice neat roads with painted lanes, and it did several frightening phantom emergency stops, luckily all at low speed.

That said, my current MG4 is just as bad with emergency lane-keeping, but with the added entertainment of it being on by default and needing to be disabled on every trip. Level 5 self-driving won't happen for decades.

andrewaylett
1 replies
6h14m

The good news is that you did what you were supposed to do. The bad news is that it would have been your responsibility if you hadn't: "FSD" doesn't detract from your responsibility to be in control of your vehicle, it merely enables your mind to wander away from the task.

I'm glad you're safe, and honestly you were set up to fail (hence the GP's point). Thank you for taking the responsible choice and not putting yourself in the same dangerous situation again.

blackoil
0 replies
4h56m

Don't know of legalities, but we have two different scenarios. First, I car in front stopped, driver is responsible for breaking, FSD may or may not help, driver is responsible. Second, car was going straight and decides to randomly change lane, speed up/down. Driver may be able to take mitigating steps, but car is responsible. Second case is more akin to car accelerating when break is pressed.

oska
1 replies
10h34m

I’d never expect that behavior out of any human driver.

People will slam on the brakes when they see an animal run out on the road. It's generally considered better driving practice to not do that, as you risk rear end collisions, but that behaviour from humans does exist.

ffgjgf1
0 replies
9h16m

That’s hardly comparable

spookie
0 replies
13h20m

And yet one sees people talking the fearure up all day on the internet, as if it's safer than human drivers. When I see such comments, I seriously question if they've ever driven a car and came across a Tesla in "self-driving" mode.

Just to add to the conversation a bit more: Humans give away their intentions in more ways than turn signals, as a human you subconsciously know what the other is trying to do, just by watching. It's difficult to explain, and you gotta have driven a car to understand.

These self-driving vehicles aren't even close to mimicking that aspect. Leading us, humans on the road, a bit more clueless on what's going on.

sebzim4500
0 replies
5h40m

Fair, but humans sometimes hit the accelerator rather than the break if they have to do an emergency stop, which is an error that you would not expect a self driving car to make.

I haven't driven a Tesla, although I've been in an uber where the guy used FSD and it didn't do anything crazy. I don't think anecdotes on the internet are going to settle this, an independent body needs to work with insurers etc. to track statistics to determine which driver assistance features are helping and which are hurting.

CaptainZapp
0 replies
2h23m

In the case of Tesla they make the argument that the safety features have saved far more than they have injured/killed

Except that they never provided hard data to support this argument.

Until they do that I'll consider it the usual Tesla marketing lies and bullshit.

brandonagr2
3 replies
22h50m

What are you talking about, Tesla doesn't ship any autonomous features. Driver assist features do not make a car autonomous. Tesla has always plainly said you must monitor the car at all times autopilot is engaged, the exact same way that turning on cruise control in any other car doesn't make the car autonomous even though the car is managing the speed.

VintageCool
1 replies
21h59m

Quite right old chap! Surely no reasonable consumer would interpret terms like "Autopilot" or "Full Self Driving" to mean that the car autonomously drives itself!

twaw
0 replies
10h21m

You can lookup "autopilot" definition in a dictionary

pengaru
0 replies
22h36m

What are you talking about, Tesla doesn't ship any autonomous features. Driver assist features do not make a car autonomous. Tesla has always plainly said you must monitor the car at all times autopilot is engaged, the exact same way that turning on cruise control in any other car doesn't make the car autonomous even though the car is managing the speed.

What are you talking about?

What Tesla markets and sells falls into SAE Autonomous Ground Vehicle classifications, just not level 5.

Nothing I wrote spoke to anything Tesla sells being L5 (or any particular level at all).

Edit: On the topic of MCAS, it strikes me as a system akin to around an SAE L2/L3, overriding pilot inputs to prevent a perceived crash/stall risk. This AIUI is well within the autonomy space Teslas operate...

nimbius
10 replies
13h23m

Its not Airbus. The Chinese Comac C919 and Sukhoi SJ100 are the two main aircraft placing enormous pressure on Boeing internationally. FAA approval is a slam-dunk for them in foreign markets as it renews confidence in the brand and allows them to compete against newcomers that are arguably just as good or better than the max series of widebodies and come in at a fraction of the cost.

Boeing management --and their flat-out inability to out-innovate the competition at cost-- are the real reason behind the push to certify at all cost.

throwup238
7 replies
13h10m

From Wikipedia:

Comac C919 - First flight: 2017, introduced 2023, number built: 10 (3 in service?)

Sukhoi Superjet 100 - First flight: 2008, introduced 2011, number built: 229

Boeing 737 MAX - First flight: 2016, introduced 2017, number built: 1,376

Airbus A320 NEO - First flight: 2014, introduced 2016, number built: 3,092

They're not even in the same ballpark. It'll take Comac decades to make those inroads and Sukhoi is done for.

oska
4 replies
10h39m

Why do you think the Sukhoi is 'done for' ?

consp
3 replies
10h13m

Impossibility to get parts legally due to sanctions.

oska
2 replies
9h35m

My understanding is that they have developed an import substitution plan for the jet and are resolved to keep producing it. [1] For instance, they are substituting the original SaM-146 engines with fully domestically produced PD-8 engines and I understand they are already, or close to testing the first prototype with the new engines (they already tested an earlier prototype with other import substitutions but which still had the old engines). [2]

[1] https://asiatimes.com/2023/09/russia-defies-sanctions-with-h...

[2] https://tass.com/economy/1699907

sofixa
0 replies
5h47m

Which begs the question, why didn't they use those engines initially? The answer is probably in their efficiency, because Russian engines are not known for that.

ffgjgf1
0 replies
9h18m

or close to testing the first prototype with the new engines

Considering that Russian engineering culture is even worse than that of Boeing (and probably massively so) it’s unlikely that they can ever be competitive if that’s the main issue

rvba
0 replies
4h50m

Remember that the whole country stands behind the chinese plane - they can just order their own lines to use it

DrNosferatu
0 replies
10h10m

Also the Embraer E195-E2.

tremon
0 replies
3h14m

FAA approval is a slam-dunk for them in foreign markets

FAA approval is only a slam-dunk because it is recognized internationally as a steward of quality and reliability. By asking the FAA to start certifying sub-par planes, Boeing will not only destroy their own brand but will bring the FAA down with them.

sofixa
0 replies
5h45m

That's simply untrue. The Sukhoi SJ100 is a different type of plane (<100 passenger capacity), comparable to an Embraer E190. Neither it nor the Comac C919 are "widebodies".

The C919 is a decent plane, but by most accounts a decade behind in tech and efficiency. And for short-haul operations, efficiency is the most important thing.

The only real competitor to Boeing today is Airbus. Comac can be one 10-20 years down the line.

consumer451
3 replies
22h48m

I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346 people so far

I would hope that is also taught in management schools, as they appear to be the ones making these decisions.

hughesjj
1 replies
21h24m

Which is why we can't let Boeing get away with this anti social behavior, lest the lesson they learn be 'oh no one cares and there's no consequences '

quickthrower2
0 replies
8h7m

Don’t let the people working at boeing responsible for these decisions get away with it.

quickthrower2
0 replies
8h8m

Just don’t think the distant echos of an ethics class will win vs. threat of getting fired for not maximising profit.

CoastalCoder
1 replies
23h6m

I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346 people so far.

I fear that wouldn't matter, because they could end up working (indirectly) for stockholders that find that dollar-to-lives tradeoff desireable.

medler
0 replies
13h52m

The idea of the ethics training is that you as an engineer don’t do the unethical work, even if stockholders want it

abadpoli
55 replies
23h31m

I have to disagree with all of the comments in this thread saying this is “insane”.

The FAA approved a mitigation for an issue in MAX 8 and 9 planes. The MAX 7 has the same issue, so Boeing is asking for the same mitigation to be approved.

If the FAA thinks it’s acceptable for the 8 and 9, I don’t see why asking for the same for the 7 is bad.

On the other hand, if the FAA doesn’t think this is acceptable for the 7, then I don’t see why it would be acceptable for the 8 and 9.

Either it’s an acceptable mitigation and all 3 should play by the same rules, or it’s not and all MAXes should be grounded (FWIW, the mitigation seems ridiculous to me and I’m leaning towards the latter).

gr1zzlybe4r
24 replies
23h20m

I think it's because the 8 & 9 variants were approved prior to the discovery of the nacelle issue. So the difference is approving a mitigation for an unknown issue in the case of the 8 & 9 vs. approving an exemption for a known issue with the 7 & 10. To me, that is a pretty big difference.

abadpoli
23 replies
23h16m

Yes, it sounds to me like that’s the issue too, but I disagree with it.

Either the mitigation is acceptable to make the plane safe to fly, or it’s not. “Well this one already existed before we knew about the issue, whereas this one is new” doesn’t actually change the risk calculus nor the effectiveness of the mitigation.

cameldrv
12 replies
22h49m

That's not how the FAA views it. There's no such thing as "safe to fly" or "not safe to fly." There are simply probabilities of accidents in different conditions. What constitutes an acceptable probability of accident is a judgment call.

The FAA has many, many safety rules, but which ones apply to a particular situation depend on a number of factors. For example, if you're flying by yourself in a small airplane, you don't even need a pilot's license! (solo student)

In the world of aircraft certification, on one end you have experimental aircraft that untrained people designed and built and may be extremely dangerous. The FAA is relatively hands-off on this as long as you put EXPERIMENTAL in big letters on the side and don't charge anyone for a ride. When you start to get into heavier, faster planes, like people who buy MiGs, there are rules about where they can operate that are intended to protect the public on the ground, but not the pilots/passengers. On the other hand, a new Boeing commercial jet is subject to intense scrutiny in almost every aspect. Obviously you see an enormous difference in accident rates between commercial airliners and experimental homebuilts.

One other dimension of this is grandfathering. Once a design is set, can be very expensive to change it. You might like the 737 to have better redundancy in its hydraulic system, and if Boeing ever designs a replacement for it, they will have to put that in. However, if every regulation the FAA made applied to existing designs, either the FAA would have to keep the new regulations to an absolute minimum, which would harm safety going forward, or Boeing would have to redesign their planes every year, or maybe even send all of the old planes to the scrapyard!

This is not economically feasible, so the FAA only grounds aircraft for very serious safety issues. Parts are allowed to have tolerances in service that they aren't allowed to coming off the production line. Similarly, old design aircraft are allowed to have features that a new design aircraft wouldn't.

What this allows the FAA to do though is to improve safety incrementally as new designs are created. Since it's so much cheaper to put in a new feature in a new design, it's economically feasible to provide safety for progressively more unlikely failure scenarios for these aircraft. Gradually, the old aircraft are retired, and safety gets progressively better.

The 737MAX notwithstanding (and you could make a strong argument that Boeing abused the grandfathering rules with that aircraft), the progressive and dramatic improvements in airline safety over the past 100 years is a testament to the wisdom of this approach.

nradov
5 replies
22h9m

Should there be an expiration date on grandfathering of airliner type certificates? Should manufacturers be required to update designs for new production airliners after, let's say, 30 years? The original Boeing 737 entered service in 1968 so even working at a slow pace with minimal resources they could have redesigned and recertified it multiple times in that period.

TylerE
2 replies
21h49m

For that matter there are still plenty of DC-3s in active service, and those are all over 80 years old at this point. Not nearly as big a deal as it might sound - the biggest wear item on a commercial plane is actually cabin pressurization due to the long term fatigue characteristics of aluminum. DC=3s aren't pressurized.

nradov
1 replies
21h43m

I'm asking about changing policies for newly manufactured airliners, not specific airplanes that have already been built. No one has used a DC-3 for FAA Part 121 scheduled airline service in decades.

TylerE
0 replies
21h5m

There are a number in regular commercial use (including passenger flights) in Canada which is a very similar regulatory regime. There are multiple US operators of the Basler turboprop conversion.

michaelnik
0 replies
21h51m

No need. That could be done be through the system of Airworthiness Directives (ADs) I think.

error503
0 replies
21h45m

Personally I think so. Type certifications should expire after some reasonable time, and require a full re-certification under current rules and with current design review practices. I think this would also have other benefits, by discouraging improvements to e.g. fuel economy or pilot procedures slightly less, since the cost of re-certification is inevitable rather than something that can be avoided.

Grandfathering aircraft that exist indefinitely makes sense to me, but I don't see why designs should be grandfathered indefinitely for new builds, when we have learned a lot and increased our expectations significantly in the intervening years.

TylerE
2 replies
21h51m

Excellent post overall, but I'd point out that almost all of the imported warbirds are in fact flying as experimentals, since obviously they are not FAA certified.

vdqtp3
1 replies
20h12m

Correct, but there are additional requirements around a warbird that do not exist for an RV-14, for example. That's his point.

cameldrv
0 replies
10h43m

Yes, they both have an experimental airworthiness certificate, but when the FAA issues an experimental certificate, it comes with operating limitations (technically part of the airworthiness cert). The operating limitations you get depend on the specifics of the aircraft.

The more dangerous the plane is to people on the ground, the more severe the limitations. For example for the really dangerous ones, they'll give you a limitation of "Flight over a densely populated area or in a congested airway is prohibited."

abadpoli
1 replies
22h19m

There's no such thing as "safe to fly" or "not safe to fly."

Except the type certificate issued by the FAA for a given aircraft is by definition the FAA saying that the type meets all applicable standards and is safe to fly. So is the granting of exceptions to any applicable requirements.

The FAA doesn’t say “eh maybe, it’s a judgement call” to an aircraft manufacturer when telling them whether or not the plane can board passengers. They may include various factors, probabilities, and judgement calls in their own determination of if the type gets certified or not, but ultimately there _is_ a determination made: either it can fly in a given context, or it cannot.

If the argument is “we learn and get better over time, and just because we approved something yesterday doesn’t mean we approve it today”, I fully agree with that, but within reason. And while I don’t agree with this mitigation being an acceptable exception, I also don’t think it’s “insane” or incredulous for Boeing to ask for it, given that the FAA already approved the same thing previously.

cameldrv
0 replies
20h12m

Even whether an aircraft should be issued a type certificate is a judgment call. The regulations are not perfectly precise, and there is always going going be a certain amount of back and forth on interpretation and waivers and alternate means of compliance etc.

Even given that a type certificate has been issued, whether or not it is legal to fly depends on the circumstances of the flight. Just as an example, under part 91 (private flying), complying with manufacturer's service bulletins is optional, but under part 135 (charter) or part 121 (airline), it's generally mandatory.

Therefore, is the FAA saying it's safe to fly a plane that doesn't hasn't completed its manufacturer service bulletins? No. They're saying the acceptable level of risk under part 91 is higher.

benhurmarcel
0 replies
17h53m

When you discover a potential safety issue on an already certified type, you do have a process to declare it and have to provide a justification or solution for it. Even if it was overlooked during certification, you can’t just ignore it.

That’s also why service bulletins exist.

pixl97
8 replies
23h12m

So normalization of deviance is acceptable here?

abadpoli
7 replies
23h10m

Please explain how this is “normalization of deviance” any more than allowing newly-built 8s and 9s to fly is.

StreetChief
3 replies
22h50m

Pretty sure two wrongs don't make a right. The unsafe planes should definitely be grounded but that would be expensive. Just because we screwed up before, and exempted planes, doesn't mean we should knowingly continue to ignore danger.

abadpoli
2 replies
22h48m

There’s no “two wrongs” here, per the FAA. There was one wrong (the issue) and then that issue is mitigated by a procedure (the issue is righted, at least partially).

Even if you disagree with this mitigation, every time a new MAX 8 rolls off the production line and enters service, the problem grows larger. Why is this okay, but not with the same for a MAX 7?

Again: either the mitigation is effective enough for MAX variants, or it’s not. I see no reason the two variants should be treated differently here.

pixl97
0 replies
21h22m

Again: either the mitigation is effective enough for MAX variants, or it’s not

No it is not. Here, you are doing just the normalization of deviance I'm talking about.

An airplane is parts, and an airplane is a system. Just because you use part X in system 1 doesn't mean a mitigation strategy for part X works the same in system 2. For example system 2 (or the MAX 7 in this case) could also have an addition dysfunction in cold weather that by itself is low risk, but when coupled with this procedure now represent a significantly higher risk of loss of aircraft event.

This is the the kind of problem that shows up in new/changed systems when accepting risk from previous systems at their previously measured outcomes.

StreetChief
0 replies
22h22m

rolling faulty max 8s is NOT ok, but it's expensive to fix, and boeing threatened congress (extortion) and got an exemption.

[edit- the fact boeing can extort congress is scary]

pixl97
2 replies
22h51m

Please explain how it's not!

And exception is a deviance that must be tracked and taken care of adding mental load to the list of things a pilot has to do.

The normalization is pushing this deviance into a new system that isn't complete and therefore has no refit requirement over a large base of aircraft.

TylerE
1 replies
21h48m

The 8s and 9s have the exact same issue and the FAA already approved the exact mitigation in those aircraft. Having different fixes for the same issue is more deviance, not less.

pixl97
0 replies
20h19m

This is exactly how normalization of deviance leads to death.

The MAX8 does not have a fix, it has a complicated checklist of workarounds for dynamic behaviors that should be automated.

Then the next level of failure you're inducing is that ' 8 = 7 '.

The combined systems of the MAX8 are not and do not equal the combined systems of the MAX7. You have re-asses the mitigation on every airframe that differs or you end up with a field of people splattered everywhere. If Boeing actually does the reassessment as they should, it will be about as intensive as actually removing the issue and reducing the workload of the pilot in the first place.

That's why a lot of people are pissy about this, as Boeing is trying to say they did it once and that work transfers to a new system perfectly. Didn't work so well with the other MAX8's that splattered themselves.

tempestn
0 replies
22h4m

It doesn't change the risk (benefit) side of the cost/benefit equation, but it does change the cost side.

To illustrate why this matters, imagine a more extreme situation, where it was somehow discovered that a similar flaw existed in all Boeing and Airbus jets. If a single new jet were being developed that had a similar risk, it could be enough to prevent certification, but we wouldn't stop all air travel because of it - the cost would be too high.

Grounding just MAX jets obviously wouldn't have that degree of impact, but the cost to airlines and to passengers would still be significant.

Zetobal
10 replies
23h22m

It's insane that you think only the number changes and the planes are otherwise the same. Ofc I want different rules for different airplanes...

abadpoli
8 replies
23h19m

Youre being disingenuous if thats how you interpreted my comment. Of course there are changes, and as someone who does significant research on plane variants, I know that more than most.

But it doesn’t take a genius to see that in this particular case, there is no evidence (at least none provided in the article, nor none that I’m aware of) that the 7 is different from the 8 or 9 in regards to how the engine icing system works (or doesn’t, in this case).

nerpderp82
6 replies
23h14m

Just because 7 is similar to 8 and 9 doesn't mean it has to get the same treatment. This isn't algebra or logic. By induction, having allowed it for 8 means that the FAA has to allow it for all plans from here on out? 1, 2, infinity.

Boeing should fix their shit. Not melting the nacelle is a simple feedback loop. Humans shouldn't be running that loop.

abadpoli
4 replies
23h12m

allowed it for 8 means that the FAA has to allow it for all plans from here on out? 1, 2, infinity.

If the plane’s issue is the exact same issue and the mitigation is the same mitigation that’s already been approved by the FAA as effective, yes, and this is currently how things work. See the MEL. If mitigation X is approved for situation Y, then it is approved for all situations of Y (within the same context). You don’t have to go to the FAA to get a new approval to take off every time Y happens, you just do X and you’re approved.

pdonis
3 replies
22h57m

> the mitigation is the same mitigation that’s already been approved by the FAA as effective

That's basically the argument Boeing is making. However, there is a counter argument that the FAA could make (though I don't know if they are): in order to limit the risk exposure now that this issue has been discovered, the same mitigation should not be allowed on any new variants not already in service, even though it is allowed for the ones already in service, because taking variants out of service is a much bigger deal than not allowing new ones into service.

abadpoli
1 replies
22h50m

I could see this being an argument, basically saying “we’re okay with the size of the problem now but don’t want to make the problem bigger by allowing more planes to fly with this issue”.

But if that was the argument, then that would also mean that we shouldn’t allow any newly built 8s and 9s to enter service, and I don’t see that happening.

pdonis
0 replies
22h37m

> if that was the argument, then that would also mean that we shouldn’t allow any newly built 8s and 9s to enter service, and I don’t see that happening

Yes, that's a fair point, although doing that would require some sort of modification of the existing certification of 8s and 9s, and I'm not sure how that would work. If those certifications were simply revoked, all 8s and 9s already in service would be grounded until the issue was fixed. But if they are simply left alone, new 8s and 9s can come into service since those variants are certified. An Airworthiness Directive, which is what is currently issued by the FAA for 8s and 9s, by itself doesn't prevent new units from coming into service.

TylerE
0 replies
21h44m

I would be ok with that if such a position included a mandatory rolling retrofit of the existing fleet the next time they come out of service for one of the big every-few-years inspections.

pdonis
0 replies
23h0m

> Just because 7 is similar to 8 and 9 doesn't mean it has to get the same treatment.

Why not? As you appear to agree, it's the same problem for all of them, and the problem is a simple one that should never have reached this point in the first place. So all of them should be held to the same standard. If that means not certifying the 7, it should also mean revoking the certification of the 8 and 9 until the issue is fixed.

> Boeing should fix their shit.

Indeed. And since the same shit is on Max 8 and 9, they should fix those too now that the shit has been discovered, and be held to the same standard for all. I don't understand why you aren't arguing for that.

CoastalCoder
0 replies
23h10m

Youre being disingenuous if thats how you interpreted my comment.

Or they misunderstood your comment, or they skimmed it badly, or you wrote it badly.

Zetobal
0 replies
4h56m
wannacboatmovie
7 replies
22h17m

It makes you wonder if the aviation experts posting here, many of whom could not find their own ass without JavaScript automation, could understand a world where you have complex machinery (such as an airplane) controlled only by a trained operator (such as a pilot). It's for the same reason they don't allow just anyone to drive forklifts.

It defies how we made it through the first hundred years of commercial aviation with pilots having to deal with more complex tasks than an "up/down" switch.

parl_match
3 replies
22h7m

Hi!

Please refer to this chart that shows the accidents/incident rates over time and their incredible trend towards zero!

https://i.imgur.com/PVaPAdX.png

That didn't happen just by itself!

wannacboatmovie
2 replies
22h1m

It has more to do with the introduction of Crew Resource Management than anything else, many airlines still fly 30 year old aircraft without fancy automation. Recall AF447 where the over-reliance on automation caused a tragedy when it failed and of course the MCAS debacle where the automation was directly implicated. There is room for a more nuanced answer here.

parl_match
0 replies
21h24m

many airlines still fly 30 year old aircraft without fancy automation

Those planes have been retrofitted over time or are in significantly decreasing use for passenger aircraft.

Over reliance on automation is an issue, to be sure, but in the macro sense, it is one part of a significant downtrend in fatalities.

NooneAtAll3
0 replies
19h59m

are you sure that X years ago airlines didn't fly 30 year old aircraft as well? only those planes were 30 y/o *at the time*?

hindsightbias
1 replies
20h59m

Given the general hostility on HN towards ATC, General Aviation, county airports and old planes you can safely presume all those future planes will be using autopilots only. Because we sure as hell won’t have any new humans qualified to operate the machinery.

Just imagine that automated future. MCAS everywhere! We should start the debate now which language all that automation should be written.

ShadowBanThis01
0 replies
19h9m

I haven't noticed this hostility. Where did you see it?

sebzim4500
0 replies
17h49m

Are you using "aviation expert" sarcastically? Because the Allied Pilots Association is reportedly concerned about this and I think it's fair to say there are some aviation experts in that group.

NooneAtAll3
2 replies
22h43m

so you're saying, everyone complaining here about "remembering to check the condition every 5 minutes" needs to complain about THIS ALREADY HAPPENING ON FLYING PLANES??

StreetChief
0 replies
16h51m

From another comment, it seems (not surprisingly) the MAX 8 and 9 have metal housings, and is different from the 7, which has fiber housings. Maybe the reason they need this exemption in the first place, is cheaping out on the housing.

ShadowBanThis01
0 replies
19h11m

If it's true, I absolutely think so!

JonChesterfield
2 replies
19h57m

If "push a button within five minutes of ice disappearing or die" is a design feature of the 8 or 9 I wouldn't want to fly in those either.

k1w1
1 replies
18h57m

Ha, it is probably best if you don't fly at all since there are already many things in aviation that work just like this.

The most obvious example is the button to enable the anti-ice systems. If you don't push that button upon encountering icing conditions then you die. Of course you don't really die in either of these cases. At least not right away. Lots of other things have to go badly first.

This is why aviation relies on checklists. There are myriad things that must be turned on and off in each phase of flight, and checklists ensure that pilots don't forget.

StreetChief
0 replies
16h54m

We owe pilots thanks, they really do take care of us when we fly.

kmeisthax
1 replies
22h40m

How about "it's an acceptable mitigation, but we want Boeing to suffer so we'll delay their new planes while letting the existing ones fly?" That seems to be the tact the FAA is taking and I think it's reasonable to take actions that deliberately punish Boeing and Boeing alone.

That being said, I'm also on the "this mitigation is ridiculous" camp. They can't even have a humidity sensor that turns the de-icer on and off?

sdwr
0 replies
22h33m

The word is "tack", referring to changing directions / setting a course on a sailboat.

htk
0 replies
20h49m

Thank you for actually adding information, differently from most of the other replies.

asylteltine
0 replies
17h53m

The FAA also didn’t think smoke alarms were important. Or radar systems. Or collision avoidance. I can go on and on… they didn’t care until at least 300 people die at once. The FAA doesn’t care about critical understaffing of towers and won’t until a fucking mid air collision happens again.

ShadowBanThis01
0 replies
19h11m

"An" issue? Is it THE SAME issue?

SkyMarshal
26 replies
23h55m

"McDonald-Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money." Such a travesty that a once great engineering company is now a bean-counting corner-cutting garbage culture. They just never learn.

morganw
14 replies
23h26m

Reminder that McDonnell-Douglas, operating as Boeing, owns Boeing Defense Space & Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu... which consolidates

"Boeing Military Airplane Company; Hughes Satellite Systems; Hughes Helicopters minus the civilian helicopter line (which was divested as MD Helicopters); Piasecki Helicopter, subsequently known as Boeing Vertol and then Boeing Helicopters; the St. Louis–based McDonnell division of the former McDonnell Douglas Company; and the former North American Aviation division of Rockwell International."

making it not just too big to fail, but too important to US and allies' defense to fail. I guess defense could be split from commercial aviation which could be reduced to producing parts to keep fleets in operation until Airbus can replace all planes over 30 or 40 years. Some of McD-D's commercial planes have a second life as military, though, e.g. the P-8 Poseidon based on the 737-800.

I took a couple of cross-USA flights recently, some on 737-800 and some on 737 MAX 8 and noted that the 800's cruising speed is faster (cf. United's Hemispheres magazine). I suppose the carbon footprint of the MAX is lower, but whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9 ?

jrockway
8 replies
23h12m

whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9

Someone made a website showing which airlines have the most delays, so airlines just added an hour of padding to every scheduled flight, and then fly slower / burn less fuel when there aren't delays. We do the same thing with commuter trains. Someone was mad that they were late to work one day during a snowstorm or something. Now trains with a top speed of 80mph take 80 minutes to go 40 miles. But are on time 99% of the time! Look at all the time saved from not being late to work!

Personally, I'd rather be 4 hours late to work once a year and save 1 hour commuting every day. But the masses have spoken and decided the opposite. I work from home, so not my problem, I guess.

groby_b
7 replies
22h51m

Meanwhile, Japan operates trains at 200mph and operators apologize profusely should they actually experience a 25 second delay.

Maybe the issue isn't that people complain about shitty service, but the fact that the service is shitty in the first place. At 80mph and at 30mph.

jrockway
5 replies
21h55m

Japan is better than the US, but I've definitely been standing around in Shinjuku station waiting an extra long time for a train, freezing my butt off, while the signs scroll "because of heavy snow in Gunma prefecture, trains are running with 15-30 minute delays." Weather is weather.

My favorite US-ism is when Andrew Cuomo (the governor of New York at the time) shut down the NYC subway because of a forecast of 24" of snow. The reason the subway was built was because of the transport disruptions caused by a big snowstorm in 1910. To close it for a snowstorm was the ultimate irony. The snowstorm didn't materialize and he looked like an idiot. The MTA then developed an actual service plan to keep the subway open during snow, and it hasn't been a problem since. (Well, not for me. For people that live on non-underground lines, they are probably annoyed. I think the pre-Cuomo policy was "play it by ear and hope for the best". That was rarely ideal but probably let a few people get home from work before trains started getting stuck. Now nobody gets stuck, but they also get stranded when the snowstorm ends up not being bad.)

nerdponx
1 replies
20h26m

Has NYC even had a comparably large snowstorm since then?

The reason Cuomo pre-emptively shut down the subway was because a few years prior there had been a serious snowstorm that did severely disrupt subway service. He was trying to avoid a repeat of the same scenario. It turned out that the weather forecast was wrong, but if we actually did get 2 feet of snow and the subway was up and running the next day, with nobody stranded in tunnels or on bridges, he would have looked like a genius.

Cuomo did a lot of stupid stuff (e.g. spending millions on pointlessly renaming bridges and setting up illegal highway signs), but that particular move was not one of them.

To this day, the MTA says that over 12" of snow would still result in system disruption and service suspension: https://pix11.com/news/transit/how-much-snow-will-shut-down-... ("Posted: Jan 5, 2024 / 09:24 AM EST")

The MTA predicts that over 12 inches of snow or blizzard conditions could cause “significant service suspensions” or a full system shutdown. However, before that, there are several contingency plans in place for winter weather and extreme snowfall.
jrockway
0 replies
10h58m

Has NYC even had a comparably large snowstorm since then?

14 inches in 2021.

To this day, the MTA says that over 12" of snow would still result in system disruption and service suspension

I think the MTA's "underground only" service plan is fine: https://new.mta.info/map/9471. This popped up right after the big shutdown. I don't see why 12" of snow would have to go to a full shutdown, unless MTA employees can't get to work. (I don't know how likely that is.)

Maybe we'll find out tomorrow! (I'm personally placing my bets on "100% rain".)

(Edit to add: apparently we got 27 inches of snow on 1/23/2016 and all underground subway service ran. I have absolutely no memory of this. I might have been in Vermont skiing.)

New York's snow woes really surprise me. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and really only ever heard about snow days on TV. We would get 3 feet of snow and still have to be at school the next morning. Every winter, I dreamed of the "phone tree" being executed. I learned the weather patterns that would result in a lot of snow. I looked at the weather page in the newspaper every day, and glued myself to the TV after school if it was looking good for snow. A few times a year, I would get really excited. It was looking like a big one. I'd stay up late and look at the snow piling up on our deck. Higher than I'd ever seen! The next morning I'd wake up and turn on the local news and watch the list of school cancellations, as my parents got ready to go to work. Never mine. Not once. I think my parents would usually drive me to school, though, which was nice.

So I guess I'm just surprised how in New York we just shut down the city upon the forecast of a couple feet of snow. Maybe it's necessary at scale. Or maybe we're just wimps.

Cuomo did a lot of stupid stuff (e.g. spending millions on pointlessly renaming bridges)

I'm still mad about this one.

TylerE
1 replies
21h30m

I guess the issue is that the yards where the trains are stabled are all above ground. If you can't get the crews to them, inspect, and operate them safely, you can't get them in the tunnels. Subway trains are all also 3rd or 4th rail powered, so I can see how lots of (effectively) standing water makes people nervous.

The mitigation I suppose would be to get them underground in advance, and when/if the snow hits you just run with what you've got.

jrockway
0 replies
20h57m

In NYC we actually have a bunch of yard capacity that is completely underground, and then a bunch of other yards that are covered (like condos built on top). Typically the snow service plans involves stacking as many trainsets as possible on the express tracks, while service runs on the local tracks. There are a ton of extra express tracks on the network (because the IND had what appears to be unlimited money when building their system), so capacity doesn't suffer a ton.

Honestly, in the 12 years I've lived in NYC, there have really only been 2 or 3 nasty snowstorms. Generally things ran OK except the one time Cuomo freaked out. (Hurricane Sandy was pretty nasty, of course. Rain and storm surge are much worse than snow here.)

groby_b
0 replies
21h51m

I mean, yes, of course, weather is weather. Nobody expects perfection in the face of force majeure. US railways, however, seem to specialize in delivering the minimum possible experience that doesn't result in open riots.

makestuff
0 replies
22h37m

Japanese public transportation made me never want to take the Amtrak/Subway/US Airlines again. It was astonishing how well it works there.

MilStdJunkie
1 replies
23h4m

I wouldn't be horribly surprised by a Boeing breakup, honestly. Even BDS might splinter down into smaller units.

The real question in a Boeing breakup, IMHO, would be what happens with BGS, because the org as a whole does an insane amount of hide-the-salami with repair/return/rebuild.

worik
0 replies
20h28m

In a sane world it would be nationalised

In this world, and that country, it won't happen, and if it did it would be a cure worse than the disease

Denvercoder9
1 replies
20h32m

> whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9

Airlines found out that people, in aggregate, care more about ticket prices than about speed. Flying a bit slower allows planes to be more fuel efficient, and thus allows them to offer lower ticket prices.

paledot
0 replies
17h7m

*higher profits on the same ticket prices

syntheticnature
0 replies
22h14m

Less about carbon footprint and more about fuel costs, IIRC; passengers are generally more cost-sensitive than time-sensitive, so if a plane can only hit mach 0.8 (or even worse) but has better fuel economy at the relevant speeds, that's better for the airline.

bandyaboot
6 replies
23h41m

Is the “McDonald-Douglas” misspelling a joke or a mistake? Curious if this is an existing joke that I haven’t seen until now, because it kind of works.

sufficer
2 replies
23h37m
marcellus23
1 replies
23h26m

That doesn't answer GP's question.

CoastalCoder
0 replies
23h9m

That doesn't answer GP's question.

No, but it's helpful for people like me, who didn't remember the correct spelling.

ht85
0 replies
19h5m

The McDonald-Douglas Fast Engineering company. I'm flyin' it!

asylteltine
0 replies
17h53m

Even if unintentional, it’s funny because that’s how MD operated. Sure it’s a plane. Is it good? No.

SkyMarshal
0 replies
22h56m

Heh, a mistake, maybe a Freudian slip, but I'll leave it uncorrected for the lols.

hnthrowaway0328
2 replies
23h4m

All large corporations become sort of bean-counting corner-cutting company after maybe a couple of decades. It is the game of modern Capitalism. They not only learned but learned well and early.

MaxBarraclough
1 replies
19h7m

How about, say, Airbus and Bombardier?

hnthrowaway0328
0 replies
18h39m

Bombardier sits on Canada.

chimpanzee
0 replies
23h7m
t3rmi
19 replies
23h8m

Recently my wife has been checking every flight we taking to ensure that its not Boeing.

I initially thought she was overreacting but based on what I’m seeing from Boeing here I have to thank her for her diligence.

snowwrestler
14 replies
22h11m

Wait until she hears about the Air France 447 crash, you’ll be taking buses everywhere.

jamiek88
6 replies
21h40m

accident statistics:

Boeing 737: 149 accidents

Boeing 747: 49 accidents

Airbus A300: 33 accidents

Airbus A320: 28 accidents

Boeing 737 NG / Max: 27 accidents

Edit for context (thanks /u/janice1999) there are 11,182 Airbus A320s and ~8400 Boeing 737 NG / Max so even pro rated Boeings recent planes are worse and the A320 has been out a few years longer too.

consumer451
4 replies
21h33m

Is there data which shows accidents per flight?

edit:

I found some and put it into a Sheet for convenience of sort-ability.

As far as raw accident per flight data, only Concorde is worse than the Max series. Wow.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FTq3PwQMb83dnNtxwZoY...

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm

dpkirchner
1 replies
21h19m

We'd probably also want to see separate stats for issues that occur shortly before landing or after takeoff -- stuff that may be more likely to come up with every flight regardless of duration.

consumer451
0 replies
21h17m

You are correct. Apologies, prior to seeing your response I had updated my comment stating that, and also found some data.

seraphsf
0 replies
6h27m

Punch line: the 737-MAX has an accident rate 12x higher than the 737.

Stunning.

consumer451
0 replies
16h40m
latchkey
0 replies
12h37m

28.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282

tgv
3 replies
21h51m

They acted on it. Wikipedia writes: "On 12 August 2009, Airbus issued three mandatory service bulletins, requiring that all A330 and A340 aircraft be fitted with two Goodrich 0851HL pitot tubes and one Thales model C16195BA pitot (or, alternatively, three of the Goodrich pitot tubes); Thales model C16195AA pitot tubes were no longer to be used."

snowwrestler
2 replies
20h38m

The pitot tubes were not the root cause of that crash.

tigershark
1 replies
7h48m

Yes, they were. They got stuck with ice and they disagreed in the air speed sent. Because of this the autopilot was disabled and the flight controls were switched in alternate law 2. The pilot that was flying failed to realise that this meant that his inputs had a much bigger effect compared to normal flight and he panicked and he also failed to relinquish control to the much more experienced pilot (on that model) multiple times. How are the pitot tubes not the root cause?

snowwrestler
0 replies
3h20m

Malfunctioning pitot tubes do not cause an otherwise fine airplane to depart controlled flight.

The root cause was human factors.

metabagel
2 replies
21h40m

It's not really an apt comparison. There were a lot of factors which culminated in that crash.

The 737 MAX was an unsafe design which Boeing was aware of and failed to address.

snowwrestler
1 replies
20h38m

Airbus’s human factor engineering was so bad that it led experienced pilots to fly a perfectly good aircraft into the ocean. They were repeatedly warned about this, and still have not fully fixed it.

amluto
0 replies
17h50m

On the other hand, there was Qantas flight 32:

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-matter-of-millimeters-...

Airbus’s flight controls worked sufficiently well that the pilots could still keep the plane in the air and then land it successfully despite the massive damage to the plane.

MaxBarraclough
2 replies
19h11m

Much as I like the idea of punishing Boeing, this doesn't make any sense in terms of personal safety. Airliner crashes are so unlikely to kill you that, in terms of your own personal safety, it just isn't worth worrying about.

paulryanrogers
1 replies
14h44m

Before the 737 MAX maybe. As more and more glaring flaws are found -- and cause incidents -- this plane appears increasingly unworthy of trust.

MaxBarraclough
0 replies
8h13m

No, what I said was correct. It simply isn't the case that avoiding Boeing airliners appreciably improves your personal safety.

Airliner crashes always make the news, so many casual observers overestimate their frequency by orders of magnitude. The statistics remain clear as day: airliner crashes are incredibly rare. They're incomparably rarer than road traffic accidents, for instance. Most years, no US airlines have any fatal crashes.

I recommend this YouTube video as a general overview of aviation safety. It's about the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash, but also covers airliner safety and big-picture aviation safety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpGl2_fVr2Y (Kobe Bryant Crash-- Risk by the Numbers)

latchkey
0 replies
12h38m

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282

"The aircraft is a 737 Max 9 and received its certificate of airworthiness on October 25, 2023."

credit_guy
19 replies
23h52m

This idea is so stupid that I don't really know how I can follow the HN guidelines to try to find a charitable interpretation.

Guys from Boeing, here's a free piece of advice: don't. Just don't.

sokoloff
15 replies
23h48m

Normally when I read a comment like the above on an internet forum, it's blowing some issue way out of proportion. In this case, I think it's a fair comment.

Today I learned that my refrigerator has a more complex anti-icing control that the engine inlet on the 737 Max (by virtue of having a $10 snap switch in the circuit).

bombcar
13 replies
23h42m

It wasn't clear to me if Boeing was asking for a exception such as "allow the planes to fly, but beat the pilots about turning the 'melt engine' feature off until we can design and build out a fix for this" or a "let's never fix it and pretend it won't happen".

The first almost is reasonable, the second is kinda batshit.

gruez
3 replies
23h41m

The article suggests the first

Boeing would have until mid-2026 to design, test and certify a permanent fix for the engine anti-ice system defect that would then be retrofitted to all MAXs.
bombcar
2 replies
23h31m

That's much more reasonable, more like whatever it's called when you can mark a system as known inoperational but still fly the plane.

sokoloff
1 replies
23h17m

"Minimum equipment list" - notably, that's used to allow a certified plane to fly with some temporary reductions in operable equipment, rather than to allow a design to proceed through certification with known defects.

brewdad
0 replies
13h4m

So we let the planes fly between Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix and never above 15,000 feet.

Or Boeing can keep the planes grounded, fix the problems, and recertify later.

credit_guy
3 replies
23h36m

737 MAX 7 — the still-uncertified smallest member of its newest jet family

The first would be reasonable if there were hundreds of such planes already flying and grounding them would result in huge disruptions. But this plane is not yet certified. How can you go to the FAA with a half-baked product and tell them that you'll get it right eventually? Considering the whole MAX history?

bombcar
1 replies
23h31m

And how does this not apply to the bigger ones? Or does it and they already got that exemption? Many questions, few answers.

aidenn0
0 replies
20h34m

The FAA is free to apply different standards to planes already in operation than to planes not yet built. To a certain extent, that's the only sane way to make forward progress on the standards (the other two choices involve airlines continuously retrofitting their fleets or the standards never changing).

sofixa
0 replies
5h41m

How can you go to the FAA with a half-baked product and tell them that you'll get it right eventually

That's the beauty of it, Boeing until recently certified themselves, with minimal FAA oversight. It's precisely because of the MCAS fiasco that there is actual scrutiny from the FAA, and much more importantly, from the actually competent people at EASA that will actually check things instead of trusting Boeing's bullshit. Note that this is actually unprecedented, normally air authorities trust each other, but FAA dropped the ball so bad with Boeing that EASA had to step in and insert itself into the process and stop automatically assuming the FAA did it's job.

CamperBob2
2 replies
23h30m

As I understand it, the real problem isn't that the pilot is expected to turn off the deicing heater after X minutes, but that the pilot will then have to remember to turn it back on when needed later.

Seems like a valid technical solution but a human-factors nightmare. Boeing needs to read the room.

pixl97
0 replies
23h7m

"Boeing: If I can blame it on pilot error it's not my fault"

StreetChief
0 replies
22h8m

if it's a human factor nightmare, it's not a valid solution, because there are humans involved.

wkat4242
0 replies
23h7m

The problem is, if they drill it in their heads too much, pilots will err on the side of caution and could ice the engine. The system is there for a reason.

cryptonector
0 replies
22h17m

"You mean you want us to make this a new type and now pilots have to get re-trained and re-certified?!"

amluto
0 replies
18h11m

Clothes dryers start an enormous number of fires every year, and this could surely be mitigated with better temperature sensing and limits.

wkat4242
2 replies
23h9m

Yeah I'm surprised they are still cowboying around after the max scandal. Do they really need to put more lives at risk before the message becomes clear that safety trumps profit?

pi-e-sigma
1 replies
23h5m

That's happening precisely because Boing didn't suffer any consequences after the last scandal.

tacheiordache
0 replies
19h49m

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's former CEO, left the company with $80.7 million in pay and benefits, after being fired over two aircraft crashes that killed 346 people in total. His compensation dwarfs the $50 million set aside for families of the crash victims.

avalys
15 replies
23h4m

What's not clear from the article is how likely this failure mode actually is to occur, even if the pilots happen to forget to disable the anti-ice.

The fact that this issue is present in the existing 737 Max variants, and none appear to have actually experienced a structural failure, suggests the probability is low.

It is easy for a bunch of keyboard warriors here on HN to insist that only zero risk is acceptable. In the real world, everything is a continuum and without knowing quantifiably where on the risk continuum this issue is, any discussion is meaningless.

wolverine876
6 replies
22h12m

none appear to have actually experienced a structural failure, suggests the probability is low.

Low probabilty is much too high for this domain, of course. The question is, how low?

In airplane design, almost all catastrophic failures happen only the first time.

MaxBarraclough
5 replies
19h5m

In airplane design, almost all catastrophic failures happen only the first time.

Presumably you meant airliners specifically?

wolverine876
4 replies
18h33m

Without knowing the specific technical meaning of 'airliners', yes that sounds about right. Maybe 'non-experimental airplanes'?

marcosdumay
3 replies
15h57m

General aviation is full of repeating disasters. And agricultural aviation is well, about as safe as a bunch of cowboys operating tractors.

wolverine876
1 replies
15h22m

Repeating catastrophic design flaws though? I'd think the even the most inhumane manufacturers would face too much liability to allow the second one to happen.

MaxBarraclough
0 replies
8h2m

What counts as a catastrophic design flaw?

Piston engines sometimes stop unexpectedly. This happens in general aviation, and sadly it quite often results in a fatal crash.

If you ban piston engines and only allow turbine engines (which are much less prone to unexpectedly stopping), you effectively kill general aviation.

throwup238
0 replies
12h54m

Those repeating disasters are mostly misjudging the weather and miscalculating fuel.

troupo
3 replies
23h1m

In a large enough dataset any edge case will occur with 100% certainty.

There are ~100 000 flights per day worldwide. I'd say the conditions described occur all the time

avalys
2 replies
22h51m

This is also a trivially true statement and meaningless for real-world decision-making.

In a large enough dataset and given enough time, a meteor will eventually hit a plane in-flight and destroy it. Should regulation require the airplanes carry anti-meteor armor?

Your qualitative judgement that these conditions described occur all the time actually suggests it's not a big deal, because the currently-flying Max 8 and Max 9 variants have the same issue, and none have experienced a structural failure.

The scenario here is that, if the pilots forget to turn off anti-ice, the nacelle will eventually overheat, weaken, and possibly fail. But clearly that is not guaranteed to happen, or happen immediately. What I'm saying is that actual decision-making here depends on what the statistics of this possible failure actually are, given that the pilots forget to turn off the anti-ice.

troupo
0 replies
5h33m

There are degrees of possibilities nd confidence intervas and...

You can start with statistics of icing/de-icing a plane vs. statistics of meteors hitting a plane.

pi-e-sigma
0 replies
20h55m

Your analogy doesn't make sense because there is no feasible way to protect a plane from a meteor hit (if it ever happens). So it's either take your chances or don't fly at all. The failure mode we are discussing absolutely can be prevented, it's just a matter of some extra cost.

StreetChief
2 replies
22h37m

wait so, because similar planes have not had failures yet, i should accept risk of death for airline profitability?

avalys
1 replies
20h50m

You are already accepting a risk of death for airline profitability. These tradeoffs are made all the time.

StreetChief
0 replies
16h38m

To me, variant 7 is different than 8 and 9, and 7 should not be given special treatment because of its similarity to the others. Any discussion is meaningless?

lamontcg
0 replies
13h31m

The fact that this issue is present in the existing 737 Max variants, and none appear to have actually experienced a structural failure, suggests the probability is low.

The fact that the space shuttle flew 60 times without SRB o-rings being a problem suggests that the probability of their failure was also low.

philip1209
12 replies
23h41m

I have mixed feelings about unions overall. But, pilots' unions seem to be an important "check and balance" to maintain safety in a capitalist aviation world.

Pilots are not machines, and can't be expected to have a 0% error rate.

psunavy03
9 replies
23h31m

As a former aviator who is likewise union-agnostic, ALPA is absolutely the exception. The pilot in command has absolute authority under the Federal Aviation Regulations to take whatever actions are needed for safety of flight. He or she absolutely needs to have a union standing behind them in order to be able to tell non-aviator managers to pound sand when they want to compromise flight safety in the name of saving a buck or two.

Otherwise stand by for:

- "You don't really NEED that much fuel reserve, it's expensive."

- "You can fly with one of those redundant components failed, stop whining."

- "You don't NEED those inconvenient crew rest requirements. Stop whining, pound some coffee, and fly tired."

- "We don't NEED to do all this expensive maintenance."

- "We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Fire them, hire the rookie from the regionals, and pay them $50,000 a year. Pilots are just bus drivers anyway."

lowbloodsugar
5 replies
23h0m

We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan.

Genuinely curious: what aspect of flying an F18 in a hostile environment with a goal of destroying things while trying to stay alive is useful for flying a 400-passenger airliner? You might say "well, the trying-to-stay-alive portion is relevant", but that involves things like high-g turns which airliners are not so good at, and ultimately ejecting is the final option, also not so good with 400 passengers on board. "It's a jet engine!" Ok? So? Does that mean I can't drive an EV if I qualified on gasoline? Does that mean I am qualified to drive an 18 wheeler because I've previously driven a Ferrari? (No, it does not).

It seems to me that F18 flight hours contributing towards Boeing 787 pilot certification is a jobs program for military pilots. Not saying that's not a good idea: we need (for now) a strong human air force.

StreetChief
2 replies
22h26m

it's not about WHERE they flew, it's about the fact they have _experience_ flying large, heavy, mechanical machines filled with fuel, in the air! These days, there are extremely limited possibilities to get experience flying planes because of drone usage. The military barely needs pilots anymore, what with all the drone usage.

philip1209
1 replies
21h56m

Military pilots probably have a lot more relative hours doing stick flying instead of autopilot, too.

aaronmdjones
0 replies
21h16m

They're also far more accustomed to, and better at following, procedures, rules and regulations, because that's the culture they advanced in.

xcv123
0 replies
21h41m

Military pilots would have superior manual flying skills and proven ability to stay calm and make the right decisions under highly stressful conditions.

Unlikely that they will panic and become completely incompetent when something goes wrong.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/...

"In the case of Air France 447, it appears that Bonin, in his panic, completely forgot one of the most basic tenets of flight training: when at risk of a stall, never pull back on the controls. Instead, he held back the controls, in a kind of panicked death-grip, all the way down to the ocean. Ironically, if he had simply taken his hands away, the plane would have regained speed and started flying again."

psunavy03
0 replies
21h3m

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the arrogance and ignorance in this post just screams off the page. You claim you're "genuinely curious," then go spew a ridiculously uninformed rant about how it "seems to you" that Hornet pilots need a "jobs program." Based, I assume, on your thousands of hours of both military and civilian experience, thousands of instrument approaches, and puissant understanding of how to operate multi-million-dollar aircraft? Donny, you're out of your element.

To correct your analogy, a career professional Formula One, IndyCar, or NASCAR driver would absolutely have a MUCH greater chance at adapting to driving an 18-wheeler than your average Joe, because they understand things like friction, turning and braking performances of different vehicles, and the visual, tactile, and auditory signs that a vehicle is or isn't being pushed to its limits. Sure, they would have to learn the finer points of driving such a massive vehicle, but they're starting off with advanced driving knowledge most don't have.

The average military jet pilot can perform the routine tasks of an airline pilot, and also handle inflight emergencies, by the time that they're a twentysomething flight student who hasn't even earned their wings yet. I know because I once was one.

They spend the rest of their career layering skills on top of that concerning how to fly in combat and employ their weapons system tactically AFTER they've already proven they can fly from point A to point B and handle inflight emergencies. What airline pilots do for a living is bare-minimum table stakes for what tactical aviators do. The appeal of the airlines isn't a more challenging job; it's not having to deploy away from your family and do dangerous things anymore combined with a union paycheck.

MaxBarraclough
2 replies
19h10m

All those things are enforced by strict regulation, not by unions, no?

StreetChief
1 replies
16h3m

who do you think got the government to make those regulations?

MaxBarraclough
0 replies
7h52m

Aviation safety is part of the FAA's mission.

I'm open to evidence of their regulations being substantially driven by airline unions, but I've never heard of this.

edit I think I just found exactly that. From page 23 of this 2014 MSc thesis [0]

Airline labor unions have fought to increase on the job safety for their members through litigation, supporting regulations, and member education. Labor unions were instrumentals in pushing for the adoption of safety measures such as TCAS and the anti-fatigue rest rules of FAR117.

[0] https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398&con...

InCityDreams
1 replies
22h58m

I have mixed feelings about unions overall.

If you enjoy your weekends and are equally grateful kids don't work 12 hour days, and someone didn't die at work today, perhaps you could get off the fence.

StreetChief
0 replies
22h29m

"this union is absolutely required for preventing death" and "i'm on the fence about unions" are two wild takes to see together.

Why the triangle shirtwaist factory fire isn't enough to encourage people to like unions, I'll never know:

Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows.

link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

rramadass
11 replies
12h36m

After emerging from icy conditions into drier air they have to make sure they turn off the engine anti-ice system, which heats the inner barrel of the engine pod so that ice doesn’t build up.

If they fail to do so, the system can quickly overheat the carbon composite material and damage the structural integrity of the engine pod.

The problem is there’s no alert or indication to the crew that the system needs to be turned off. They just have to remember to do it.

If they forget, or are distracted by other tasks, the overheating can begin to damage the structure after just five minutes.

This is all you need to know to pass judgement on Boeing Management. Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?

throwup238
3 replies
11h42m

> Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?

McDonnell Douglas happened [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas

lr1970
1 replies
3h26m

> Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ? > McDonnell Douglas happened [1]. > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas

More details are in the book "Flying Blind" [2]. It shows how Boeing's culture of Engineering Excellence was gradually replaced with MD's rotten parasitic culture through the process that is better described as "reverse acquisition". Formally Boeing acquired MD, but in reality MD took over Boeing.

[2] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...

cyanydeez
0 replies
2h17m

it's basically how enshittification is happening.

fmajid
0 replies
8h4m

An uncle worked for McDonnell Douglas, then Boeing, on military planes (C-17). The tales of the culture of utter corruption on the military contractor side he told were chilling.

thewileyone
1 replies
7h56m

Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?

Management by accounting ... cost of paying death settlement is cheaper than building a proper airplane.

rramadass
0 replies
7h40m

Very true; exactly what happened in the aftermath of the two 737 MAX disasters.

And they have the temerity to call those societies which still practice "Blood Money restitution" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_money_(restitution)) as "savage, backward and uncivilized".

nikau
1 replies
11h21m

No need for an anti-ice system, just wait for the deactivated mid-aft door fall out and knock the ice off.

rramadass
0 replies
11h13m

Boeing management's attitude reminds me of this passage from the novel "The Sea-Wolf by Jack London".

“Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don’t you see? And what have you to say?”

bitcharmer
1 replies
10h47m

Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?

MBAs took over, that's what happened. A story as old as capitalism.

rramadass
0 replies
7h54m

In the erstwhile third-world countries the moniker "Boeing" was synonymous with all Aeroplanes and a symbol of American Technological Might. Every kid knew of "The Jumbo Jet" and families would make weekend picnic trips to the Airport to see one up close and if allowed, enter the cabin for a tour. You were "somebody" if you had traveled in a Airplane and bazillion times more-so if it was on a "Jumbo Jet".

It seems Boeing is now set on destroying all reputation and goodwill earned over decades and by extension making American Technology and Management a laughing stock in the World.

ephaeton
0 replies
12h10m

Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?

Suits.

snickell
9 replies
10h32m

Fascinating timing for this article, as a Boeing 737 Max 9 just experienced a catastrophic depressurization (sounds like everyone was ok) today: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/business/alaska-airlines-...

I've heard Boeing folks suggest that the 1997 acquisition of McDonell-Douglas (who was having serious financial difficulties at the time) ironically resulted in the latter's MBA-heavy management taking over Boeing leadership. The result has been a less profitable company with a now poor and getting worse safety record: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...

sschueller
3 replies
9h44m

So is the FAA going to ground these planes now or do what they did the last time? At least no one died yet this time around.

For those who still do not understand what unchained captialism looks like. This is a taste of it. The phrase "the market will correct itself" may be true eventually but ignores the hundreds of people that have die before that happens.

tigershark
0 replies
8h26m

No way that they are going to ground them now. Last time they were delaying the grounding as much as possible even after the second fatal crash. They grounded it only after a lot of other countries already did it.

ren_engineer
0 replies
1h30m

you're using one of the most regulated and government lobbied industries as an example of "unchained capitalism" ? Boeing would have went bankrupt years ago if it wasn't for their sweetheart government contracts and favors given due to lobbying

chmod775
0 replies
8h43m

I don't think airline manufacturers are a great example of unchained capitalism. They're a god-awful example actually, being heavily chained to nations and in many cases directly supported, protected, and owned by them. There's a reason high-level diplomats are involved in many aircraft sales and you'll see the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia or wherever announce preliminary sales numbers before even the manufacturer does. Airline manufacturers are essentially immune to free-market forces, because their respective governments would never let them fail. Not to mention that - unlike aviation - many other industries don't even have their own dedicated government agencies to regulate them.

Also the airline industry as a whole also has a stellar safety record, Boeing's issues notwithstanding.

That's not to say that your core thesis is necessarily wrong, but airline manufacturers aren't a great vehicle to argue that point.

musha68k
2 replies
8h42m

What would it need so the US government takes over the company and puts the engineers in charge? Hadn't NASA been run like that at least until some point in the 80s or so? I don't know about those contexts at all, would just like to wrap my head around what was and is possible or not in the US.

thewileyone
0 replies
7h44m

A family member of a senator or congressman must perish in an accident before any legislation will occur.

quickthrower2
0 replies
8h14m

I just don’t think that would happen. The government seems impotent to do anything that is for the greater good if there are corporate interests (not capitalist but corporate, i.e. this Q bonuses > long term business value).

isp
0 replies
7h42m

Related:

- Today - "Alaska Airlines grounds Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after mid-air window blowout" (47 comments, so far): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38889774

7thaccount
0 replies
10h0m

I also remember reading about the damage from that acquisition. I wonder if it would have eventually occurred anyway as that level of short-sighted thinking is so pervasive in industry now.

siva7
8 replies
21h16m

It's quite funny how we still teach THERAC-25 to students about how deadly engineering issues can get yet Boeing seems to be a much better and modern candidate to teach about bad engineering/management practices affecting safety (MCAS).

janice1999
7 replies
20h34m

I also nominate the "Toyota Unintended Acceleration" issue. A lecturer friend of mine likes to reference these slides from the trial: https://www.safetyresearch.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ba...

ntonozzi
3 replies
18h57m

This trial made no sense. Try stepping on your accelerator and brake at the same time and see what happens: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blame-game/id111938996....

amluto
2 replies
18h2m

1. There’s an identified mechanism by which the software could accelerate without the pedal depressed.

2. In my car, if I step gently on both pedals, they both take effect. (Which is reasonable: starting uphill is a thing.). If I step harder on both pedals, the car chimes at me and the motor output is reduced automatically.

ntonozzi
1 replies
17h49m

In every car, the brake is much, much stronger than the accelerator, and easily overpowered by braking. Every one of these cases was simply a person who accidentally stepped on the gas, thinking it was the brake. If you ever feel like this is happening to you, pick your foot up and try again.

zeagle
0 replies
2h46m

... and put your car in neutral and kill the engine by holding the start button.

jiggawatts
2 replies
20h19m

Toyota kept going on and on about how their software code wasn’t faulty, but analysts showed that it was so incredibly riddled with bugs that unintended acceleration was not only “in there”, but was hiding under a layer of literally(!) thousands of other critical bugs.

Did Toyota change their safety culture as a result?

Hah… no.

firebaze
1 replies
18h23m

Can you please provide some links? As far as I know there are no credible references. Also, my whole family drives Toyotas for at least 40+ years, so I both have a real interest to know if that occurs, and I also have some anecdotal evidence it doesn't occur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration...

jiggawatts
0 replies
17h8m

Check out page 40 onwards: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_...

The code quality can be best described as criminally negligent, unsafe, spaghetti garbage with incorrect concurrency sprinkled on top for laughs.

rpowers
8 replies
23h59m

This feels like disabling unit tests in order to get tests to pass. I've yet to see this strategy not blow up later.

epmatsw
3 replies
23h57m

And where the workaround is "have the humans not forget to do something" no less...

radicaldreamer
2 replies
23h29m

It's truly insane to put a human in the loop for something like this... its like saying don't forget to turn the oven off after 5 minutes or it might explode (ovens go through extensive compliance testing to make sure they don't cause fires even in adverse conditions).

hypothesis
1 replies
20h27m

It does look insane, but at this point I trust pilots more than I trust Boeing-designed automated system not to kill humans.

paulryanrogers
0 replies
14h42m

Perhaps MBAs shouldn't be allowed to manage aircraft production. Like Boeing before the merger with McDonnell Douglas.

catchnear4321
3 replies
23h48m

if this had anything to do with passing a test, it would look significantly different.

the point is to make tests not fail. you can’t fail the test you don’t take.

the logic is completely sound. it’s just also removed from reality. which might make it seem a bit mad.

StreetChief
2 replies
22h35m

the whole point of the exemption they are requesting is to avoid "taking a test."

jbverschoor
1 replies
22h7m

Sprinkle a few slashes or dashes before some lines, problem solved.

catchnear4321
0 replies
21h53m

you know if the test is being skipped… might be cleaner to just delete it.

neonlights84
8 replies
15h8m

When I was getting ready to graduate college with a degree in mechanical engineering (circa 2009), I must have applied to Boeing 50+ times. I was a huge fan of the company. Every application was flatly rejected, no explanation given.

I moved on, and I'm glad I did. Boeing sucks. I feel like I dodged a bullet.

crazygringo
3 replies
13h21m

I must have applied to Boeing 50+ times

What does that mean? Like you sent in a new application every other day?

Why would you re-apply after getting rejected? Don't you need to get more experience on your resume?

Job rejections virtually never get explanations. Even if you've interviewed in person, it's extremely unlikely. That's just how it is. Nothing specific to Boeing.

ncgl
2 replies
13h3m

I interpreted it as applying to 50 different roles, which I think is normal if you really like the company.

skittleson
0 replies
12h22m

Same, I've had colleagues do the same process to get a foot-in-the-door. It does work based on observation alone.

crazygringo
0 replies
3h16m

Oh, thanks. I've never seen that before for new college grads -- usually these big companies have a centralized hiring and interviewing and placement process for grads since that's so much more efficient.

standeven
2 replies
12h44m

I realized Boeing sucks during the C-Series fiasco.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_...

sofixa
0 replies
5h39m

Funny thing is, they're the biggest (well aside from Bombardier that were forced into a fire sale and are a shadow of themselves now) loser of the whole story. Airbus got a brand new and very good design for practically free because Boeing were stupid and short-sighted.

lessbergstein
0 replies
12h3m

Well, they can't be that bad if the FAA will to listen to them. I can recall another transportation company who is able to have legislation passed for their soul benefit.

Sparkyte
0 replies
11h29m

Might have been better if you worked there.

el-dude-arino
5 replies
23h53m

The devil cult of Jack Welch rears it's ugly head again...

nytesky
2 replies
23h39m

Yeah Gelles holds up Boeing as the poster child of Welch’s legacy. A place where engineers ruled, and then accountants…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/books/review/the-man-who-...

radicaldreamer
1 replies
23h28m

Boeing was one of the most innovative companies and took major risks to move the state of air travel forward (747 etc.) and that basically came to a standstill after the spreadsheet and finance people took over.

sofixa
0 replies
5h34m

took major risks to move the state of air travel forward (747 etc.)

That's a very bad example. Boeing failed with the 2707 supersonic transporter because federal funding was cut, and assuming that they'll be left behind by the obvious future of supersonic passenger transportation with the Concorde and the Tu-144, decided to make a plane filling other niches that were going to be left. Like cargo, which wasn't going to need the speed, but needed capacity. The 747 was a dual use cargo and passenger design.

hn8305823
0 replies
23h43m

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch

In 1963, under Welch’s management of the facility, an explosion at a factory blew off the roof, and he was almost fired for that episode.

Checks out

MilStdJunkie
0 replies
23h12m

Yeah. Welchian management is garbage from a product perspective - that's just about the most obvious thing in the universe - but the real crap of this is, over the lifetime of the business, it's also garbage from a finance perspective. Go ahead and take a tour of the companies that went whole-hog on Welchian initiatives. Assuming you can find one that still exists, show me one that's unequivocally making money today.

Welchian management is just another spin on the old "restaurant fire" mafia scheme: bank up debt on assets before selling the plumbing and torching the place. Like the mob, it makes a handful of cash for some random top guy, and absolutely wrecks everything else, forever.

It's hard to not take stories like this personally, having spent time inside the Boeing mothership. The power of this organization to destroy value rivals that of a small-ish military occupation; the ability of Boeing to do anything meaningful in an engineering context is pretty obviously at an end[1]. It's a testament to past cleverness - and to the knowledge and dedication of line workers, maintenance, and aircrew - that any legacy Boeing product ever works, at all, ever. And that's why we're now fixing deficiencies like this in goddamn flight checklists. Because it's all that's left.

[1] Whatever innovation leaks from the company today is wholly from acquisitions, and those always have all cash choked from their lifeless corpses within five or ten years. Even DoD procurement has put a big red flag on the Boeing RFPs that come in, although that's also related to their increasing inability to estimate costs better than RANDINT.

baby
4 replies
22h2m

Can the US just buy airplanes from Airbus at this point?

rsynnott
0 replies
18h53m

Lots of US airlines do (and lots of European airlines buy from Boeing; Ryanair even has a special 737 variant…)

rconti
0 replies
18h51m

US airlines already can.

panick21_
0 replies
20h16m

Not sure if you are joking or not. But since its not funny I assume not.

Switching from one airplane to another isn't like switching from a Honda to a Toyota car. It requires lots of training and thus cost.

Southwest as the prim example has many 100s of pilots trained on a 737, they have a huge maintenance network that is trained for the 737. They don't fly any Airbus at all, thus they have 0 experience in their whole operation.

Switching would a monumental task. It was reported that Southwest took a serious look at A220 program, but has since doubled down on 737 for the next couple decades.

Many airlines have switched to higher amounts of Airbus and Airbus has made inroads into the US market. But partly now Airbus has so many orders for 737 Max sized planes that if you order one, your gone have to wait for a long time. So, maybe you still rather get that 737MAX instead.

For a while the market was more like 50/50, now we are trending towards a 40/60 market, or potentially even more. And that doesn't take into account that Boeing lowering prices quite to get some of these contracts.

StreetChief
0 replies
16h8m

not all boeings are bad, in fact, most are fantastically reliable, except for the newer versions with incredibly cheap design, that places extraordinary demands on pilots and their knowledge. There is a welchian management culture that is cutting costs to the bone.

rkagerer
3 replies
11h12m

The 737 MAX has been in service since 2017 and has accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours. In that time, there have been no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to overheating of the engine nacelle inlet structure,” the filing states.

That's your rationale?

Have we forgotten when NASA management discounted concerns about O-rings in part because one hadn't catastrophically failed yet? (Until Challenger)

anakaine
1 replies
10h7m

Given Boeing's recent horrendous safety record with knowlingly allowing unsafe systems to fly, and the failures of such resulting in catastrophic crashes, the FAA would be out of their mind to consider the proposal.

ryanisnan
0 replies
1h23m

I think the word for this is negligent. The FAA would be negligent, or worse, criminal, should they allow this.

blackoil
0 replies
4h54m

Someone else has also liked, but apt for this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

jvans
3 replies
21h55m

Calhoun should conditionally agree to the following for FAA approval:

If this event occurs within 10 years of launch he:

* forfeits 10x the compensation he received from boeing including capital gains to the families

* spends 3-5 years in prison for wrongful death

Let's see how confident he is when he has skin in the game

jetrink
2 replies
21h47m

The Babylonians had similar ideas. Code of Hammurabi, Law 229: If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.

jvans
0 replies
21h40m

There has to be some accountability, otherwise capitalism just turns into a game of socializing externalities and personalizing profits.

Calhoun makes the decision, reaps the profits regardless of outcome. If things go wrong boeing pays (maybe) and hundreds of people die

gnulinux
0 replies
21h20m

How is lawfully prosecuting a private company that makes profits off of a vehicle is the same thing as killing someone? Would you agree with literally any punishment against Boeing for cheaping out on their design?

exabrial
3 replies
21h38m

A lot of armchair commenters need to realize that commercial planes accept commands; it's up to the pilot to prevent putting the the airplane into an unsafe state. This is actually an important safety feature in itself... being able to override all systems to prevent a catastrophe has happened many times in flight history. For instance, if you need to dodge an incoming collision, you could care less if you might exceed the g-load-rating of the airframe. You might crack something, but it might safe quite a few lives; vs a guaranteed death if you stay on the collision course and can't turn fast enough.

Your experience with technology is consumer safety systems. These are designed so safety systems can't be overriden: the tech is protecting you from yourself.

If you think this is "bad", you really ought to watch the startup sequence of a large commercial airliner. There are lots of things depend on the crew to do the right thing and it literally happens thousands of times a day, every single day, with an accident record that is far better than consumer safety systems.

metabagel
0 replies
21h17m

I feel like you didn't read the article, since your comment doesn't address anything from the article itself.

In this particular case, the engine anti-ice system needs to be turned off within 5 minutes of icing conditions going away. The pilots union has said they are concerned about this. There needs to be a better system than that.

The problem is there’s no alert or indication to the crew that the system needs to be turned off. They just have to remember to do it.
hughesjj
0 replies
21h36m

I have no issues with there being manual overrides. I have issues with Boeing cheaping out on design and then whining to ignore safety rules so they don't have to fix their bad design.

ThePowerOfFuet
0 replies
21h14m

A lot of armchair commenters need to realize that commercial planes accept commands; it's up to the pilot to prevent putting the the airplane into an unsafe state.

Looks like one more armchair commenter has yet to learn about the Airbus flight law system; it's not possible to put the aircraft into an unsafe state in Normal Law.

AFAIK, Boeing has nothing comparable.

readthenotes1
2 replies
23h18m

What could go wrong?

"Boeing said..." Why bother asking proven liars anything?

StreetChief
0 replies
22h23m

Seriously!!!!!! Their history proves they are unreliable cost cutting fools.

JJMcJ
0 replies
22h21m

Amazing how Boeing has thrown away a century of good reputation in the last five years.

chx
2 replies
23h48m

to break and fall off.

fall off I heard that before.

[Senator Collins:] Well, I’m not saying it wasn’t safe, it’s just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.

[Interviewer:] Why?

[Senator Collins:] Well, some of them are built so the front doesn’t fall off at all.

bcrl
1 replies
16h47m

roflmao You missed the perfect oppourtunity for the obligatory link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

chx
0 replies
10h29m

I didn't feel the need with this crowd :)

I did it on Twitter tho: https://twitter.com/chx/status/1743343104906686673

worik
1 replies
20h22m

Is Elon Musk now running Boeing?

rpmisms
0 replies
10h14m

No, he has a much better safety record.

thrillgore
1 replies
21h42m

If anyone from Expedia is reading, please add a filter so I can search for "Airbus flights only." Thanks.

oska
0 replies
10h24m

You can manually filter out airlines that have substantial 737 fleets. (Wikipedia usually has good information on the makeup of each airline's fleets.)

sreejithr
1 replies
19h35m

I'm scared of flying on any Boeing from now on. Jeez, these guys are sloppy and looking for shortcuts.

coayer
0 replies
15h40m

The MAX, sure, but the other Boeings in service are good aircraft and liked by pilots (unlike the 737).

latchkey
1 replies
12h35m

This gets posted and hours later brand new Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 has a door sucked off the side of it.

"The aircraft is a 737 Max 9 and received its certificate of airworthiness on October 25, 2023."

StreetChief
0 replies
12h19m

looks like maybe the exemption for the max 9 (and 8?) were bad decisions. surreal.

iforgotpassword
1 replies
23h54m

Guess they're worried the public is already forgetting the previous MAX crashes so they're preparing for the next "PR campaign".

geophile
0 replies
23h47m

They're going to rename the planes to HBO.

andy_ppp
1 replies
21h30m

Boeing should sack all their management and promote engineers to any needed management positions. This idea after the last set of issues is ridiculous and it'll be the same non-technical people who think it's magical thinking that keeps aircraft in the sky.

StreetChief
0 replies
16h27m

this unfortunately requires management to fire themselves, which seems unlikely to happen. I guess maybe the government could step in somehow, or at some point.

IlikeMadison
1 replies
23h35m

if it's Boeing, I ain't flying.

thedrexster
0 replies
23h27m

You missed the chance at "going" :/

turquoisevar
0 replies
14h17m

JFC Boeing, read the damn room…

thumbsup-_-
0 replies
21h2m

Again the Boeing version of "Sales people running an engineering shop".

teeray
0 replies
23h26m

I feel like if you made a plane that has killed anyone recently through your fault, your company should enter a period of “time out” where you get zero exemptions from anything.

techie128
0 replies
20h17m

What the actual f*ck is wrong with Boeing's management? After the MAX fiasco that left several hundreds dead, I would have expected the new management to be more cautious about safety issues. As a consumer, I feel the need to vote with my wallet and feet. I feel it is time to boycott flying on Boeing's unsafe planes. Unfortunately, due to consolidation and lack of competition there are very few choices left for us.

soumlaut2
0 replies
23h25m

Is this why Nikki Haley is getting a push? (:

solarpunk
0 replies
23h14m

Boeing really wants to cut corners, and it's gonna take a really long time to fully bite them in the ass, because of their effective monopoly on US produced jets.

refracture
0 replies
20h50m

I just can't see how anybody would want to give Boeing the benefit of the doubt at this point.

rawgabbit
0 replies
18h57m

Let’s fly fast and break engines and airplanes. Boeing management need to be behind bars for making such a ridiculous request. Uhhh. We didn’t have time to make a safe airplane. Can we have an exemption? This is egregious and wrong.

radicaldreamer
0 replies
23h31m

This plane is a lemon and the US Gov is in cahoots with Boeing to keep it flying

quickthrower2
0 replies
7h59m

If you need the anti ice for more than 5 minutes then is it pan-pan time?

peterlada
0 replies
20h34m

Boeing cannot make things that fly no more. So now as a lawyer run entity will try to redefine the concept of flying to, riffing on Douglas Adams line on, constantly falling and mostly missing hitting the ground.

olliej
0 replies
18h18m

Wow “no nacelles have overheated or fallen off the max”. Really? Not even when a different single point of failure hidden “feature” flew a bunch into the ground killing all on board?

mjhay
0 replies
23h46m

In its petition to the FAA, Boeing argues the breakup of the engine nacelle is “extremely improbable” and that an exemption will not reduce safety.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd trust Boeing's judgement on the probability of catastrophic events at this point...

michielt
0 replies
18h52m

I always wondered if you can buy a plane ticket where it shows the manufacturer/type of airplane that will be used for the flight. Anybody has some insight?

k12sosse
0 replies
19h24m

If you haven't seen it yet, Charlie Victor Romeo is a great work

johnsanders
0 replies
20h4m

Anybody who says newspapers and other "legacy media" are obsolete isn't aware of journalists like Dominic Gates.

jms703
0 replies
21h50m

Surely this can't be as simple as automating the icing system along with announcements to the pilot to keep them aware?

iamawacko
0 replies
21h24m

The McDonnell Douglas merger was the biggest mistake Boeing has ever made.

hamuraijack
0 replies
17h20m

Isn't this the exact reason they got into this mess in the first place?

class3shock
0 replies
18h34m

I do think it's important to recognize they are working on a fix for the issue, which is called out in the article.

I also think it's important to recognize no one commenting in the article has seen the analysis, knows what is meant by "structural damage" or what went into Boeing saying a failure resulting from it is "extremely improbable". Could be it's a solid analysis, the structural damage they mention is no where approaching a concern, and they think it's extremely improbable for good reason. Or not, I just don't think we know.

That being said, it is hard for me to look at this as something other than another example of poor company culture. You have a component that can be damaged when exposed to temperatures above a certain limit, for a certain length of time, connected to a heater that can heat it above that limit for longer than that time... And no systems to stop this?

This strikes me as being due to someone without an engineering degree saying "We've always used this heating system, there's no need to go through an in depth new analysis or testing regime to validate it's use, that would cost lots of money!".

carbine
0 replies
20h37m

I still do my best to avoid flying on the MAX 8. V low confidence in Boeing after that debacle. They introduced MCAS to compensate for the fact that they didn't want to spend on redesigning an aerodynamically stable plane that could accommodate the new, larger engines.

When MCAS led to crashes, they dialled it back, increasing the power of the pilot relative to the computer. That's not a solve. In either case, the aircraft has an additional point of failure that properly designed aeroplanes do not have.

The 788 is great but the 787 MAX, not so much.

Needless to say this new story does not inspire further confidence.

cameldrv
0 replies
10h39m

Bad timing for Boeing, a 737MAX just had an explosive decompression. I bet they don't get their waiver now.

callamdelaney
0 replies
15h25m

The real issue here is regarding decision fatigue & resource management. It’s just another thing that a pilot may have to deal with which could distract from making important decisions in a potentially dangerous situation.

batisteo
0 replies
19h5m

The company’s share price rose significantly toward year-end based partly on that expectation.

And partly due to the bombing of Gaza aided by Boeing JDAM systems, I guess.

alphaomegacode
0 replies
13h44m

I am definitely not a business expert but am I reading it correctly that Boeing has a -48% tax rate?

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BA:NYSE?sa=X&ved=2ahUKE...

alkonaut
0 replies
19h11m

There is some shitty engineering there for sure, but I still fly any 737 (MAX or not) so long as relevant authorities find it safe enough. It's usually not possible to switch airlines/planes anyway. If the trip is by MAX or not at all, the trip happens. Not really an argument of any kind, but these posts always get littered with people who are quick to say they won't fly plane X again etc. Just one vote the other way.

Sparkyte
0 replies
11h29m

Just fix the problem and recertify the plane. How hard is it? I mean you haven't sold a lot of them since a few turned into fireballs.

ShakataGaNai
0 replies
23h5m

Boing is working really hard to write that old marketing limerick [1] for a new era:

If it's Boeing, I ain't going.

[1] https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/23039-if-it-aint-boeing-i...

Podgajski
0 replies
23h9m

We are literally at the end of American civilization. Now the enshitification (Cory Doctow) of the world is reaching airplanes.

At first, they were really good to the users. Now they don’t care about the users, only care about the shareholders.

Lev1a
0 replies
21h31m

Title:

Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air

I bet they do and the FAA should rightly tell them to fuck off if they're not willing to go through the formal procedure to get their proven-dangerous planes back into commercial aviation.

LanzVonL
0 replies
41m

Doesn't the FAA basically work for Boeing because these two share revolving doors? I'm just not flying any more.

IceHegel
0 replies
10h45m

This, along with the door blowout in the middle of an Alaska airlines flight and MCAS give me reason to believe the MAX was an ill-conceived project from the very beginning.

Shareholders need to suck it up, and Boeing needs to start with a clean sheet of paper and design airplanes the same way their parents did. Enough coasting on re-engines.

Havoc
0 replies
19h37m

Really starting to feel like Boeing have a massive & pervasive culture problem rather than a specific technical issues problem.

Which is terrifying...

DrNosferatu
0 replies
7h16m

Ooops…