I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The problem is that, if you are doing this after many years of "deny the problem and ship it", the number of apparent problems is actually going to go up for a while. I wonder if Boeing's customers and shareholders will have enough patience for him to complete the transformation (assuming that's even possible in a company this size)?
This is to the point where, although it's irrational but I know statistically I'd be fine, I'd be scared to fly on any new generation Boeing.
It is irrational.
Since November 2001, there has been one death aboard a major airline operating in the U.S.[1]. That was a Southwest flight where an entire engine self-destructed. It was an issue with the CFM engine, Not with anything Boeing did.
You might choose to include one more. An Asiana flight tumbled end over end after arriving short at SFO. Everyone survived the crash, but a passenger was killed when an emergency responder hit them with a vehicle, unable to see them due to firefighting foam.[2] The accident was again not caused by anything related to Boeing.
You are safer aboard any aircraft operated by a major American airline than you are on any other form of transportation. Including walking.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
Why are you including only US airlines for comparing a plane model's safety? That seems very convenient. And even worse you are using other planes data as well.
Because most readers of this site are American, and fly on airlines from the US. When assessing their risk, it makes sense to use US statistics.
Hi non American here, I have never and likely will never fly on an American airline, but I'd very much like to not die because some dickhead cut costs and another dickhead drilled the wrong holes in a part.
The implicit assumption that all readers are Americans is ridiculous enough, making it an explicit reason for fudging the numbers to make a tire fire of public safety seem like it's just a dumpster fire is absurd.
You’ll be happy to learn that Boeing and Airbus have roughly equivalent safety records.
If you wish to fly safely, fly in countries and on airlines that observe stricter requirements on pilot training, rest, and CRM, and which are rigorous about maintaining their planes.
Which can basically be translated as avoid (especially) Africa, South East Asia (that isn't Japan or South Korea), and most of South America. Eastern Europe is a dodgy but no on the same level.
neither Japan nor South Korea are South East Asia
What part of Asia are they then? They’re East and south of its center.
The vocabulary that defines geographical terms was always politically loaded and never meant to be interpreted in a scientific, rational manner.
South east asia doesn't literally mean "everything that is south and east in Asia". Just like how Europe isn't an actual continent but an arbitrary border that defines itself, in reality, by "the place where white people live in the West of the continent and who aren't Russians". Because the actual contiguous landmass, is, well, Eurasia, and Europe is an arbitrary human color that paints something that doesn't exist over the world.
https://dppa.un.org/en/northeast-asia
The United Nations define Northeast Asia as being: Japan, China, Mongolia, South and North Korea.
From wikipedia :
The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by American historian and political scientist Robert Kerner. Under Kerner's definition, "Northeast Asia" includes the Japanese Archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, the Mongolian Plateau, the Northeast China Plain, and the mountainous regions of the Russian Far East, stretching from the Lena River in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east
The definition of Northeast Asia is not static but often changes according to the context in which it is discussed.
If you think really hard about what those countries have in common, something that isn't related to a rational view of geography, it's that they're asians who don't look too brown. Yes, the origins of the definitions of SEA vs NEA are racially motivated and they're terms we're stuck with because most of the world knows what you mean when you talk about SEA vs NEA.
https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/15/kotokin/ko...
"On the intimate frontiers between the Russian and the Chinese empires," Kerner wrote in the 1920s, "are face to face the world's largest, fastest-growing white population and the world's largest, ablest and perhaps fastest-growing yellow population." Much the same could be said seventy years later, even if we would disavow the racial categories that provided much of the attraction for Kerner
Those definitions were written by people who didn't shy away from calling others "Yellow population". But they also became part of the language enough that even entities like the United Nations won't bother trying to change them.
Do you not fly internationally?
Most Americans don't! I'm sure HN commenters from the US fly internationally more often than the average American, but still.
And the poster upthread talked about airlines operating in the US, not just US airlines. That would include, e.g. airlines from EU countries that fly to the US, and even have some domestic hops here.
Ethiopian Airlines had 8 (now 6) routes to the USA.
This is kind of why I don't mind playing Russian Roulette. I mean, think about the chances! Despite all the times people have played the game, how many have died in San Francisco, between 3rd Street and New Montgomery Street, while it's been raining on a Monday when Lionel Messi didn't play in Hong Kong because of injury. The chances are minuscule.
Not only that, but zero people reading this have died playing Russian Roulette while flying on a Boeing!
In fact, none have died doing either of those things independently.
The plurality are American, but not necessarily the majority.
I think it's safe to say that the commenter's observations about airlines operating in the US mostly apply to airlines operating in Europe, for example. That should push us well over 50%.
No it doesn't. That's called cherry picking data to fit a preconceived conclusion.
Why are you including only US airlines for comparing a plane model's safety? That seems very convenient
737 MAXs are not identical worldwide. There's a number of optional add-ons, which even discount US airlines will pay for, but emerging market discount airlines will not.
Specifically for the 737 MAX crashes, it was from a faulty AoA sensor. Neither of the crashed planes had the AoA disagree alert option, but all US airlines paid extra for it. It's not something you're supposed to need, hence being an optional extra, but for obvious reasons budgets aren't as tight at North American airlines as discount airlines in emerging markets.
This isn't to say we're guaranteed that an AoA disagree alert would have avoided the problem, it was undeniably a faulty design, but it probably provides an additional layer of safety. There's a reason that when the MAX returned to service it became standard equipment for all MAXs sold.
So, it's not entirely correct to totally exclude planes from other countries. But there is a fair point in putting more weight on similarly configured planes.
I actually specifically mentioned airlines operating in the U.S., which includes international flights operated by foreign airlines. But yes, you get to the heart of the matter. The U.S. in general expends more time and effort on safety: higher-spec airplanes, more crew hours and training, better maintenance, etc.
It doesn’t feel relevant to most people on this site to include airlines operating on a shoestring budget in Southeast Asia or Africa in the statistics. It also doesn’t feel fair to manufacturers to penalize them for operators that barely maintain their planes, overfly inexperienced pilots, and that lack basic safety regulation.
Southwest made changes to activate the indicator after the accident, so they at least were in a similar (or same?) situation at Ethiopia.
Ethiopia Airlines is the largest in Africa, with a good safety record. It is a Star Alliance member, and has flights to Washington DC.
https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines...
A company reckless enough to make "no single point a failure" a pay-for optional feature is not a company whose planes I would like to fly on, regardless of where the company operating the plane is registered.
Not trying to defend Boeing overall here, but showing an explicit indication of an AoA sensor disagreement wouldn't magically have averted the two 737 MAX crashes. The basic cause of the crashes (apart from Boeing's dumb design decisions) was the pilots' failure to correctly execute the runaway stabilizer trim recovery procedure. Given that 737 MAX pilots didn't receive any training on MCAS, it's unlikely that the warning light would have greatly influenced their response to the situation.
Because airlines and pilots operating within the U.S. are subject to significantly more safety restrictions and regulations than much of the rest of the world.
Put simply, pilots are required to undergo more training, observe best practices in CRM, and have strict requirements on how much rest is required between flights. Planes are better maintained and inspected.
I’m sure there are other countries that do a good job here, but in general America is significantly more strict about these things than much of the rest of the world.
Your own link doesn't back that up.
A Delta Connections commuter flight killed 49 in Lexington, KY in 2013.
"Delta Connection" isn't a "major" airline. It's a regional airline that Delta relabels. It's different airlines in different parts of the country. (And it's not just Delta. United does this too, and I'm fairly sure American does.)
So, the word "major" means that the GP was at least technically correct. (You can argue that it doesn't matter, because if Delta relabeled it, they should own the results...)
That's a hell of a lot of goal post moving. Comair is (and was at the time) a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta. It counts.
It's not "goal post moving" when his original post says "major airline".
You’re right, the goals were in a stupid place to begin with. I see no honest reason in the scope of this discussion to make this distinction. The regionals expand the network of the majors, it’s not like they overlap. People buy and use these services just like the major airlines. The distinction is interesting in the context of comparing the relative safety of the regionals but in a discussion about general airline passenger safety it is disingenuous.
My lack of including that flight was a mistake. I was unaware that Comair was operating as a subsidiary of Delta.
Still, it doesn’t really change the upshot. No manufacturer was at fault here. And even if you include this flight in the data, flying in the U.S. is safer than any other form of travel.
I chose to limit it to airlines operating in the U.S. due to our generally higher expectations around maintenance, pilot training, and workload, amongst other things. I chose to limit it to major commercial airlines because that is what most people fly on, and it removes extremely small tourism operators who are often far less rigorous in their safety practices and which are crewed by relatively low-hour pilots who are working up toward qualifying for a major. It also eliminates cargo aircraft which are not relevant. And lastly, I’m choosing to include only passengers to eliminate things like people walking onto active runways.
Hopefully you can understand why I chose these limitations. Not to skew the data, but because it is most relevant to most people on this site, and because it’s not really insightful or helpful to point out that there are many more crashes in the many countries out there with lax safety practices.
Still, it doesn’t really change the upshot
Indeed it does not, which made the omission more strange or innocent. What was ridiculous was the apologia subthread.
small tourism operators who are often far less rigorous in their safety practices, with relatively low-hour pilots.
There have been some improvements (in part due to these accidents) but this isn’t so far off from the regionals which was definitely a factor in both Comair and Colgan.
But crucially the majors are going to sell you a connecting ticket on them like any other, and they code share and mile just the same. Many of them are wholly owned to boot.
It was not my intent to exclude regionals operating regularly-scheduled white-label service for the majors.
It was my intent to exclude microscopic commercial operators doing charter flights, tourism, and other similar activities.
I sincerely apologize for the omission, I did not recognize that that Comair flight was operating under the United banner.
Then you also have to count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk%27s_Ocean_Airways_Flight... and it's 20 fatalities. That was a regularly scheduled flight by a US carrier.
Chalk’s Ocean was not a major airline and it was not a regional airline performing white-label service for a major airline.
I hope you can recognize that a company privately operating a fleet of seven floatplanes is not particularly relevant to a discussion about the safety of mass passenger air travel, in much the same way that a carnival operating a rollercoaster is not meaningful when discussing passenger rail.
Why isn't it relevant? They obeyed the exact same rules and regulations (FAR Part 121). That's the exact same part of theregs that applies to Delta and United. They weren't a charter or sightseeing operator.
They were, prior to the their closure, the oldest operating airline in the US and something like #3 worldwide, post-dating only KLM and one of the other European flag carriers. (Lufthansa, maybe? I don't have the list handy)
I'm pretty sure the US majors aren't flying airframes that haven't rolled off a production line in half a century, from manufacturers that shuttered their doors over a decade prior.
I'm also pretty sure that you, nor anyone you know, nor anyone they know has ever flown on Chalk's.
Then you're pretty surely wrong. I visited the Bahamas a number of times as a kid.
Your whole approach here feels rather bad faith/no true Scotsman-y. Of course you’ll have no fatal crashes if you say every fatal crash doesn’t count for some reason or another as not a real crash.
I chose to limit it to airlines operating in the U.S. due to our generally higher expectations around maintenance, pilot training, and workload, amongst other things.
The high-quality training that resulted in a pilot being unable to discern the correct runway to use?
Your line of argument here and elsewhere in this thread is nonsense, especially because the very US authorities you're lauding disagree with you.
If the foreign operations of Boeing aircraft weren't relevant to their safety everywhere, then the FAA wouldn't have grounded the MAX worldwide due to crashes that happened in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
The high-quality training that resulted in a pilot being unable to discern the correct runway to use?
Is your argument that better-trained pilots are expected to be perfect? Because my argument is that better-trained pilots result in fewer overlapping holes in the Swiss cheese model.
If the foreign operations of Boeing aircraft weren't relevant to their safety everywhere, then the FAA wouldn't have grounded the MAX worldwide due to crashes that happened in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
The FAA being extremely cautious and willing to take serious measures to protect passenger safety is strongly in line with my argument.
The flight was operated under Delta by a subsidiary of Delta wholy owned by Delta. This would be like saying if all of the Youtube database was hacked, Google wasn't hacked. Google owns Youtube. Delta owns Comair.
Subsidiary or not, at least one source (wikipedia) thinks the distinction exists. You might argue that the distinction doesn't matter when it comes to assessing airline safety, but that's hardly grounds to accuse someone of "moving the goalposts". The goalposts might be arbitrary, but they weren't moved.
What exactly is the distiction?
Comair started a regional airline. They partnered with Delta. Then Delta bought 20% of them in 1986 and the other 80% of them in 1999.
If you want to call that a meaningful distiction then I don't know what to say.
It's like claiming Instrgram is distinct from Meta because ??? I don't even know, they kept the name separate? WhatsApp is separate?
Are you talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comair_Flight_5191 in 2006?
Note that this was a Bombardier plane, not a Boeing, and it was the pilot taking the wrong runway, not a plane issue.
(Whether to count it as "aboard a major airline" is a semantic question that isn't very interesting.)
Also Colgan Air 3407, a codeshare for United, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407, which crashed with no survivors in February 2009.
That was operated by Comair, which according to wikipedia is "regional airline", rather than a "major airline"[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_airlines_of_the_United_S...
2006
That Boeing’s unforced errors have not killed many people on US soil is no excuse for shoddy manufacturing practices. We should no more accept plane doors falling off due to mismanagement, than we should accept railroad cars derailing due to mismanagement.
Boeing made several billion dollars a year of profits for ten years prior to Covid, but failed to reinvest it in their manufacturing practices to prevent unforced errors, which left unchecked caused a plane to catastrophically decompress in the sky. Their shareholders may think that’s acceptable, but their customers do not.
It is absolutely no excuse for these issues. At the same time, not flying on Boeing planes out of fear of safety is completely irrational.
One needs to ignore a lot of stuff to believe these newer planes are very safe, so I'm not sure if it's completely irrational.
You have a long list of fairly recent problems... the stuff around MCAS that killed people, misdrilled holes, loose or missing bolts, debris inside fuel tanks, etc.
And the reason why no one died on the Alaska flight was more luck than anything. I'm not sure if everyone would be alive today had it happened later in the flight when some people remove their seat belt.
One needs to look at the data to believe these planes are very safe. Even if one or two people had died on the Alaska incident (which—to be clear—would have been an avoidable tragedy for which Boeing would be responsible), flying on a major airline in the U.S. is still safer than any other form of transportation.
You don’t think twice about hopping into a passenger vehicle. You don’t follow the latest NHTSA crash test reports and refuse to hop in an Uber driving the “wrong” make/model vehicle. You notice plane crashes because they are so exceedingly rare while traffic fatalities are so common they’re boring and routine.
Planes in general are very safe compared to other forms of transportation, but we're not comparing the Boeing 737 Max to some Tesla or Ford. We are comparing it to other planes.
While I'm likely to fly on a 737 in the future, it's perfectly fine to say "well, since there's an Airbus A320 Neo available, I'll fly on that instead". Why? Because while data doesn't show it, there's a list of fairly recent Boeing screw ups and there are even better alternatives not affected by said screw ups.
The Alaska incident didn't kill someone because of luck... a different day or a few minutes later and it's likely someone would have been ejected from the plane. The problem with the plane/manufacturing/Boeing is there, even if no one died and that's why looking at numbers alone without context is as bad as refusing to fly just because of the panic caused by "news". There's a middle ground between these two extremes...
Regarding cars, you probably wouldn't have to refuse to go on a car known for coming out of the factory with loose wheel nuts because if the problem was known there would be a recall and Uber itself would ban the car, something they already do in some places for even less important reasons (space, comfort, etc). I also find it hard to blame the customer for not wanting to go on a car model that has a new major problem every 1 or 2 years.
By the way, I understand the point you're making, but keep in mind that the level of risk people are willing to take is different for different things. To you it might make no sense to avoid the Max if also you take a car to the airport, but that's not how most people work.
While I'm likely to fly on a 737 in the future
The 737 is arguably the safest airliner ever produced. You are specifically talking about a specific line of 737, the 737MAX.
Yes, I was talking about the Max, thanks for pointing that out. It's too late to update my reply now though.
Planes in general are very safe compared to other forms of transportation, but we're not comparing the Boeing 737 Max to some Tesla or Ford. We are comparing it to other planes.
We are discussing a comment that stated "I'd be scared to fly on any new generation Boeing."
That fear is irrational, full stop.
I'll continue to compare it to other modes of travel when making my decision. Currently it's safer than those, and most of these issues appear to be minor and fixable. I'm not worried. If I worried about anything it would be my commute to work, which I would stop tomorrow and demand to work from home or find another job if I was clutching at my pearls over travel safety
You don’t think twice about hopping into a passenger vehicle.
I think twice quite regularly about hopping into a Tesla, and after years of avoiding them solely for aesthetic dislike, I found that they also have been burying quality control issues rather than repairing them — just like Boeing! — and so I intend to continue avoiding riding in them whenever possible.
You don’t […] refuse to hop in an Uber driving the “wrong” make/model vehicle.
I learned how to select the ride level in Uber/Lyft to ensure I don’t get a Tesla.
traffic fatalities are so common they’re boring and routine.
Traffic fatalities are unforced errors that I invest most of my energy while driving into avoiding — not just my own errors, but the potential errors of the walking and driving into avoiding. I won’t enter an intersection on the walk signal until I see the car start to decelerate, because I can’t trust that they’ve looked up from their phone long enough to prevent an unforced error that kills me. It’s the same lesson taught by “This vehicle stops at all railroad crossings” and “Don’t sleep under coconut trees”: the odds are slim that diligence saves lives, so remain diligent and occasionally save lives. I am just one life, and while I cannot take every precaution, I can certainly take those precautions that I deem worthwhile.
I recognize I’m more likely to die to a Tesla than in a Boeing and I have more precautions assigned to Teslas than I do Boeings. However: if the plane door blows off, I’ll be traumatized even if I live, and I would rather avoid that. As public transit riders, we do not deserve the increased chance of severe traumatic events that Boeing is inflicting on their passengers, onto us, by their shoddy manufacturing and QA.
Isn't there independent data about accidents or deaths per driven mile per vehicle brand/type? I don't think Tesla is over-represented there? Even in that data there can be confounders... I would look at those vs. rumours about quality control.
But hey, I rode a motorcycle for ~25 years which is definitely riskier than a Tesla.
Being careful as a pedestrian makes perfect sense. I got these things drilled into me as a kid, because when we were kids we walked everywhere.
I mean, I also watch closely at any electric 3-ton and heavier vehicle — they’re all going to instakill me in my 1-ton vehicle! — but Tesla in my region has an especially high chance of being driven (or autopiloted) unsafely, so I take especial care; the Rivian drivers are totally chill so far. If I was in another region like one of my family is, I’d have to watch out for big trucks “accidentally” trying to sideswipe me so they can pretend they’re Nascar drivers and zoom off without a rear plate, but that doesn’t happen much here where I live. Local circumstances always vary from nationwide statistics.
I think twice quite regularly about hopping into a Tesla, and after years of avoiding them solely for aesthetic dislike, I found that they also have been burying quality control issues rather than repairing them — just like Boeing! — and so I intend to continue avoiding riding in them whenever possible.
Thank you!! Just like you're anti-Maxx, I'm anti-vaxx, no matter what the data says, I don't trust Pfizer / Boeing. We're twins and I'm glad the "I did my own research" and "I don't trust the experts" narratives are finally getting their fair shake.
you’re anti-Maxx
Well, I was a big fan of the Maxx when it broadcast back of the 90s, I think?, but I haven’t rewatched it since then, so I don’t really have any opinion anymore. Maybe I’ll take a look again, though I admit I don’t follow how it’s related.
I don’t trust Pfizer / Boeing
Their Covid vaccine is second to none for me, of all the different vaccines I’ve received since 2015. You’re definitely missing out — I encourage giving them a second chance for your next booster. Is there some financial connection between Pfizer and Boeing that I should be aware of?
I'd add that Americans are characteristically allergic to capital investments which has a lot to do with why we can't have nice things.
(For instance, when there was the scandal over card skimmers, Canadian gas stations upgraded their pumps to use chip cards about two years before US gas stations.)
Airlines in third world countries are a major buyer of the latest planes whereas American airlines (particularly Delta) are famous for having excellent maintenance operations to keep 20 year old planes in the air.
346 people died in two similar crashes of two Boeing 747 Max planes. Boing and the FAA initially cast the blame on supposedly lower standards at the Indonesian and Ethiopian airlines operating the planes, but this was completely unsupported and incorrect speculation. Poor processes at Boeing and the FAA were in fact responsible. Unfortunately the incorrect narrative has persisted.
Agree!
By the time there were c380 Max's built, two of them had already fallen out of the sky (despite operating for only a year). That's c0.5% of the fleet falling out of the sky every 12 months!
Still not too risky on an individual flight, but if you were a pilot across a 40 year flying career those odds start to stack up across your cohort!
Plus it's a bizzare safety stance to try and sell "So what their planes fall out the sky much more than our competitors... It's still safer than driving!"
By the time there were c380 Max's built
???
Are you talking about the 737 max?
They mean "c" as in "circa," i.e., about 380 had been delivered.
"C." means "circa", c380 means nothing.
That’s why god created “~” character.
Isn't it 1%? If the oldest of the 380 has been operating for a year and they were produced at an even rate, their average age should be six months.
I don't know much about car accidents, but 1%/year sounds like a lot. Can one even legally sell a car model if 1% of the cars are going to crash lethally in the first year? Or evne 0.5, or 0.2%?
Sure, but there are really two questions:
1) Do we believe that the issues that caused those two crashes were not sufficiently dealt with, such that they might recur?
2) Do we believe that there are other issues that could cause catastrophic failures that could result in further deaths?
I feel pretty safe in saying "no" for #1. #2 is harder to answer. So far the new issues found are unlikely to cause further deaths, but maybe there are other problems lurking.
But even with the uncertainty around #2, I'm still safer (for example) flying from SFO to LAX on a Boeing plane than driving that route. But maybe that's not the best comparison: am I measurably safer on an Airbus plane than on a Boeing? Probably? But is that amount enough to be worth worrying about, logically, if I can get my irrational fears to shut up for a minute? Not sure I've looked at the data (assuming there is enough of it) to decide that.
Boing and the FAA initially cast the blame on supposedly lower standards at the Indonesian and Ethiopian airlines operating the planes, but this was completely unsupported and incorrect speculation.
This bit feels like it doesn't tell the full story. IIRC there was a report about a third plane that (after at least the first crash, not sure if it was before or after the second) ran into the same issue with MCAS, but correctly followed the recovery procedure and was fine. Now, it could be that the recovery procedure is unreliable, and that third cockpit crew got lucky. But I don't recall what came of all that.
And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash. My understanding is that all US airlines had already opted for that piece of equipment, and at this point presumably everyone has now opted for that piece of equipment. Given the issues, it should have never been optional (and maybe it no longer is). But GP is specifically pointing out the safety record of US-based carriers, so it should be notable that they seem to be better at identifying what bits of optional equipment are important enough to splurge on.
IIRC there was a report about a third plane that (after at least the first crash, not sure if it was before or after the second) ran into the same issue with MCAS, but correctly followed the recovery procedure and was fine. Now, it could be that the recovery procedure is unreliable, and that third cockpit crew got lucky. But I don't recall what came of all that.
And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash.
The first plane had experienced unwanted/incorrect runaway MCAS activation on the flight before the accident flight; the pilots turned off electric trim for the rest of the flight (which is part of the memory checklist) [1], and the aircraft was subsequently cleared by mechanics for the accident flight.
On the second accident flight, it seems that the pilots were unable to complete the specialized checklist for improper MCAS activation, as aerodynamic forces made manual trim impossible. Wikipedia notes that the earlier 737-200 had a procedure for recovery in this situation, but it had not been part of training for quite some time.
And on top of that, the two planes that crashed didn't have optional equipment (a disagree indicator, IIRC) that would have likely given the pilots extra and sufficient information to understand what was wrong and avoid a crash.
I don't think knowing that the airspeed indicators disagree is enough to know what to do, in absence of knowledge of the MCAS. Perhaps, it could have helped the 2nd accident crew, if they had been able to connect the dots and disable electric trim before trim position became too extreme to manually correct. For the first airplane, I don't think it would have helped, because the implications of wrong airspeed information were unknown; maybe it would have resulted in the broken sensor being replaced after the penultimate flight though.
Sensible limits on automation would likely have prevented both accidents (and was implemented after the second accident). Transparency about MCAS may have helped with the first accident, but clearly wasn't enough for the second. Separate cutoff switches for automation and electric trim would have helped with the second flight (there's two switches already!), but knowledge of MCAS would be a prerequisite.
In the first accident, both the pilot and first officer were quite experienced, but in the second, the first officer had less than 400 hours of flight time, which is significantly less than the 1,500 hours required to be a first officer in the US. Increased flight experience may or may not have helped in this case, but is an area where US carriers differ from international carriers.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610#Investigat... see "previous flight problems"
Boeing sold and the FAA approved an unsafe plane. The fact that there was an upgrade option does not matter: aviation cannot permit a manufacturer to sell an unsafe plane with a necessary safety upgrade.
It was an issue with the CFM engine, Not with anything Boeing did.
The engine cowling was made by Boeing and was supposed to stay on when the engine lost fan blades, the cowling was what struck the side of the aircraft and broke the window in question. Boeing is redesigning the 737 cowlings to better respond to blade out failures.
Turns out you’re correct. The engine is a CFM, but the cowling (which is supposed to contain ejected fan blades) is designed by the airframe manufacturer. In this case, Boeing. TIL!
Chalk one death up to a Boeing design in the last 21 years.
You've excluded the >300 deaths from the two 737 MAX crashes.
The poster upthread was specifically talking about deaths on airlines that operate in the US.
Whether or not that's a useful distinction to make is up for grabs (I expect the point was to talk about flights that most Americans are likely to take -- and by extension most Europeans, since I believe EU airline safety records are similar), but excluding those deaths is fair based on the specifics cited.
If you choose criteria that arbitrarily exclude all fatal accidents after the fact, then anything can be said to be 100% safe.
I chose criteria that reflects the reality of passenger air travel for most of HN. You can note that every carrier in the U.S. who purchased a 737 MAX opted for a more expensive configuration that included a third AOA sensor. This ensured that the MCAS accidents would not have happened for anyone flying on a major carrier in the US.
I suspect this is also the case for most western European airlines, but I don't actually know. So I didn't include them.
The majority of HN's user base is not spending most of their air travel on carriers operating on shoestring budgets in Africa or Southeast Asia. They are not flying most of their miles on charters run by operators with fleets of ten planes that carry a dozen or two passengers at most. They are not flying on ancient de Havillands or Grummans. They are not passengers on cargo planes.
The majority of HN's user base is flying on comparatively well-funded carriers operating within jurisdictions that enforce strict controls around maintenance, pilot training, crew workload, and other wider operational considerations. This doesn't make flying risk-free, and it doesn't absolve Boeing of their responsibility in building reliable aircraft. But it does mean that the average HN commenter encounters significantly more danger crossing the street than they do when flying.
For distance traveled flying is safer than any other form of transportation (maybe except trains?). I wonder however, what the stats are for time spent. How much safer is time spent flying, compared to other forms of transportation? Is it about equal, a bit safer or an order of magnitude safer?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety
By hours, flying is substantially safer than car or foot, on par with trains. By quantity of trips, substantially less safe than walking.
That's on average. The Max is historically about 30 times more dangerous than the average, putting it on the same ballpark as cars.
But of course, all the historical problems have been fixed...
Like anything else, not all operators are equal. I probably wouldn't want to try my luck as an Amtrak frequent traveler.
Thanks for the stats! Interestingly traveling by space shuttle comes down to 70.000 deaths per 1 billion hours traveled, compared 30.8 deaths per 1 billion hours flown.
There were a total of three fatalities resulting from Asiana 214. Two passengers died onboard, as a direct consequence of the crash.
As for the third, it was later speculated that they could possibly have already died before encountering airport fire and rescue vehicles. This is still controversial; it is also possible that the original sequence of events was correct.
The primary cause of the crash was a profound lack of airmanship by the flight-deck crew. There was also some mode confusion with the autopilot and autothrottle; however they should have overcome this using fundamental aviation skills. Nobody was minding the actual throttle state.
Either way, it is worth noting the other two fatalities. Thank you.
I should have double-checked. I was going off memory. I lived in SF at the time, and I remembered only the person who died after the crash. My memory was wrong. If I could go back and amend my comment to address this (and other inconsistencies pointed out by others), I would.
Thanks, I came back to point this out.
Why link to a source that says directly opposite of what is being claimed? It doesn't make sense to me.
The stereotypical American that is unaware there is a world outside their borders seems to actually exist :)
If I was unaware of a world outside American borders, I would not have explicitly excluded it.
I make no claims regarding the safety of airlines operating in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. I don't think the safety records of those airlines are particularly relevant to the majority of those on HN nor to the manufacturers of the airplanes they operate (and which are frequently barely maintained).
Yes it is all good until it isn't. There is no glory in prevention.
Let's wait for statistics on the new plane :)
I'm not sure it's irrational at this point. The entire program seems to have been grossly mismanaged, and that includes on the FAA side.
Let's say 15 year old Toyota arrives on your Uber, instead of a shiny new one - would you cancel and wait for another car? Keep in mind that riding in both cars is statistically vastly more dangerous than flying any modern Boeing, including 737, by a huge margin.
Unless flying is the only mode of transportation you ever use, avoiding Boeing will not make your life safer, it will at most make you calmer.
That's not the choice though. It's choosing one new car that doesn't have a bunch of safety recalls over one that does.
New car reliability measured in warranty returns per vehicle is much WORSE over the last few years than 15 years ago. Turning your nose up at the 15 year old Toyota is probably making a choice to be _less_safe, since at least the old Toyota's recalls are known, and likely fixed. The new vehicle doesn't have enough time on the roads for all the dangerous defects to be identified and recalled yet.
The 15 year old Toyota has fewer safety features than the modern one. Side impact airbags, collision monitoring systems etc. Additionally, the 15 year old Toyota will only be as safe as the maintenance that has been done to keep it operating properly. Do you trust a random Uber driver to have kept up with everything?
Back to safety systems, the 15 year old Toyota almost certainly had faulty airbags that were recalled many years ago. Something like 56,000 of those recalls still haven't been done. Which pool of vehicles does this Toyota belong to?
That's one of those numbers people throw around without understanding what it means. The vast majority of new car warranty issues are things like "I don't understand bluetooth" and "You have to actually read the manual?".
There are some 20 year old Toyota recently recalled over Takata airbags that blow shrapnel in your face potentially leading to your death, but no one is reselling their toyotas, I'm not sure what the HN panic over Boeing airplanes is.
It is a psychological bias called availability heuristic: https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/availability-heuristic...
They use funny example in this article:
When asked if falling airplane parts or shark attacks are a more likely cause of death in the United States, most people would say shark attacks. In reality, the chances of dying from falling airplane parts are 30 times greater than the chances of being killed by a shark.
Remember this simple rhyme for for your safety whenever you’re booking a commercial flight: “If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.”
Airlines can switch your plane after you've booked already.
JetBlue doesn't fly any Boeing planes so as long as it isn't a codeshare flight you should be great.
Better yet, fly Breeze Airways
https://www.flybreeze.com/home
which is building an all new fleet out of modern A220 and E2-Jets. Breeze is cheap enough that I am thinking about riding to some random city and discovering a reason to go there because I want to ride in an A220.
Interesting opportunity for travel insurance: a policy that refunds your ticket if the plane turns out to be a 737 (even at the last minute).
I realize it's not a viable business idea, but I'd feel such Schadenfreude if Boeing had to deal with the optics of that.
I really hope that airlines start to offer a discount to fly on a 737MAX. I'd be all over that.
Don't forget that Airbus also uses Spirit AeroSystems.
This transparency is good, don't punish them for it. There's no guarantee whatsoever that other plane manufacturers don't run into similar problems and don't announce them.
I have to wonder if they're using this opportunity to dump all of their known bad production issues so they don't get sued for misleading shareholders later. The kind of stuff that wouldn't have ever come to light if the door hadn't fallen off that Portland flight.
Maybe it's even something they can try to spin as improving quality control practices for brand rehabilitation. Or maybe I am just imagining things.
There is a pretty good chance (about 100%) that after that door fell off they are reviewing a lot of stuff and that is why this has been found, not so they can 'dump all of their known bad production issues' but simply because they are becoming aware of them and are legally mandated to report those issues.
Or maybe I am just imagining things.
Quite possibly. I'm as cynical as they come but I'm actually happy that they report these issues and I hope that they will do this exhaustively until they have a proper inventory of what went wrong so they have a chance to really repair both the issues and their culture, and hopefully before there is another incident.
I have to imagine that even a cold hearted MBA can probably appreciate that the PR damage occurring right now more than justifies the cost of a decently large team of people whose only reason for existing is auditing the assembly process.
If they want to stay out of the docket in the long run that would be an excellent move. Because if another 737 falls out of the sky and it happens over the United States you can bet that prison time for execs is going to be called for if they don't get to the bottom of this. Whether it will happen is another thing but they have run out of goodwill.
I'm as cynical as they come but I'm actually happy that they report these issues and I hope that they will do this exhaustively until they have a proper inventory of what went wrong so they have a chance to really repair both the issues and their culture, and hopefully before there is another incident.
Sure, me too.
I think it is more like there was a systematic laziness that had been growing with regards to QA which is being replaced by paranoia, so under scrutiny we're seeing attempts to be on the extreme of doing things by the book to avoid the most painful oversight actions. In other words, extreme CYA behavior like this.
This transparency is good, don't punish them for it. There's no guarantee whatsoever that other plane manufacturers don't run into similar problems and don't announce them.
Make no mistake, there is no real transparency here. There is no sudden "culture shift".
Boeing is under a magnifying glass and no-one is going to stick their neck out and say: "Well, geez this is such a small mistake I'm going to ignore it". Because if planes start falling from the sky (again) you want your ass covered. There is currently just very little incentive for anyone (employees, managers, FAA, etc.) to led things slide.
no real transparency
There is currently just very little incentive for anyone (employees, managers, FAA, etc.) to led things slide.
What is "real" transparency?
I think this is a good question and the kind I wish I thought of.
Not the GP but I think in this case, "real" transparency refers to a culture in which there is no attempt to hide issues like this (internally at least); they should be caught and should be immediately handled without positive or negative impacts to one's career.
As such, this would not be "real" transparency. The issues being raised appear to be only being done under duress (perhaps as an attempt to show that something is being done) and may easily vanish when media attention passes.
The issues themselves seem relatively simple and should have been discovered a long time ago. As such, the implication made by the fact that /they weren't/ is that Boeing and Spirit have informal internal policies that discourage the discovery of these problems.
"Well, geez this is such a small mistake I'm going to ignore it"
There are "mistakes" you ignore when you're building an aircraft but you don't call them mistakes, because they aren't. You have tolerances for everything. To be "correct" a dimension is specified, must be no bigger than this, no smaller than that. And that's it. You're either in the spec or not. If you're not there's no ignoring, parts were delivered out of spec. There isn't some secondary "out of spec but only a little".
Subcontractors (like Spirit), the prime contractor (Boeing), and everyone responsible for verifying (FAA, perhaps others) all share culpability for things going quite wrong. Hopefully the NTSB still has it's head on straight and the coming scathing reports will attract attention in Congress to light a fire under the FAA's ass to do its job, preferably with some direct legislation for things the FAA must do. (i.e. no more manufacturers doing self-verifications)
There some very large punishments for plane manufacturers that discover that kind of problems and don't announce them.
Is there a travel site that allows you to filter out 737Maxes?
This question comes up every time articles like these come up and the answer is no, there is no reliable way unless you check what airplane you're boarding right as you walk on it. Airlines regularly swap out planes to cover up for delayed flights, weather, mismatched demand etc and the plane model you're shown as you're buying the ticket is not necessarily the plane you're gonna fly.
I’m not convinced that actually happens very often. I can’t remember a case where it has happened to me, and consider that changing to a type with a different number of seats would require issue in new tickets. And you need to balance demand not on a single route, but on the entire circuit the plane needs to fly.
Happens quite often in airlines that operate a range of types. E.g. Airlines that operate both the 320 and 321, 777-200 and 777-300, etc often swap aircraft between pair of similar types but slightly different number of seats to match demand but still draw from the same pilots/crew due to common type ratings. But I've also had 320 to 777 swaps, 757 to 321, etc do it does happen especially on routes where they operate a range of different aircrafts. Yes some tickets may need to be reissued but that's better than cancelling the fight where all the tickets have to be rebooked onto other flights. Some changes are due to low demand so in those cases no ticket reissue are needed. It also depends on the airline, you'll see swaps more often on airlines that operate many different kinds of aircraft and also depends on the route as some routes can only be served by a particular aircraft (e.g. ultra long haul routes, airports with short runways, etc) while other can be served by a wider variety of aircrafts lending itself to operational flexibility. YMMV.
This happens a lot when your flying with Alaska or Southwest. Both airlines have significant MAX fleets and will change the dispatch schedule for aircraft fairly often, in my experience on Alaska it happens about 10~20% of the time.
Also, Southwest does not assign seats and Alaska does not have a difference in seats between their -900 and MAX 9 aircraft. Although with Alaska I have had my seat reassigned because they changed from a -900/MAX 9 to a -800 before.
Install the "Legrooms for Google Flights" Chrome extension. It tells you both the exact aircraft type and the legroom in Google Flights searches.
kayak.co.uk
Kayak lets you do it, although there's no guarantee the airline won't swap out the plane from under you after you've completed booking.
Two things:
1. Although the article states that the problem is with MAX planes, I am under the impression that this particular part of the design is common to all 737s. It might currently be limited to production runs of the MAX, but I don't think that's clear, and in theory the same defect is potentially in any recent 737. If anyone has better info, please let me know.
2. If it is limited to MAX and you're flying in the US, you can opt for Delta, which doesn't currently operate MAX. It does have 100 order for 2025, but for now, you're in the clear.
Look up the flight code on flight tracking sites before you check out. See what plane was used for most days in the last couple weeks. That's the model you'll get 95% of the time.
Kayak does this. As the other reply points out, it's not a guarantee, but they are incorrect it doesn't exist anywhere as a filter.
Door blow out
Engine on Fire
'Many loose bolts'.
etc..
Now This.
Have a flight in couple weeks? Time to worry?
No, because the problems aren't worse than they were a few months ago before anyone was re-inspecting things for this.
And you wouldn't have worried about this months ago, so there is no reason your worry should be greater now.
If anything your worry now should be less since they are actually double checking these things now.
well technically.
We didn't find out about these things because of increased inspections.
We found out because it was in the news when there was videos of a door blown off, then a few days later an engine fire.
THEN, they started more inspections.
So, it seems more like a trend, where there were more and more problems until they piled up far enough to breach the surface.
So how many haven't been found, the ice-burg below the surface.
My only point was that hearing about the issues found by more inspections shouldn't change your mind about the safety because performing more inspections and reporting on the findings doesn't reduce the safety of what it already was (what you were presumably already OK with before simply hearing about the new inspections and issues found).
Your logic is absurd. We shouldn't worry because we weren't worrying before we knew the problem existed? Now we are educated about the problem what are we supposed to do? Put our heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist??
We weren't OK before, we were ignorant.
Nobody is saying to put your head in the sand.
But I don't see how the planes are any less safe than they were months ago.
If anything they are safer now that the issues are being fixed.
So if they aren't any less safe now, and I was willing to fly in one then, then logically I should be willing to fly in one now. That's how it seems to me at least.
I guess I don't think we (travelers) weren't worried enough.
Looking at the overall historical safety and incident records it seems like it was still very safe. Less safe than we thought, sure, but still quite safe, safe enough to not be actively worried as simple travelers, at least in my opinion.
So for me if there were so few incidents with the unknown problems, then I don't see why I should be worried now that they know about and are checking and fixing the problem and even other problems.
Think we are arguing about a reaction to imperfect information, verus actual safety.
Yes, today, with increased inspections, planes are 'safer' than they were. If we take a baseline a few months ago, they are 'safer' now.
But
In the past, we had imperfect information about how worried we should have been. So a few months ago 'before knowing about defects' we weren't worried enough.
We didn't know how worried we should have been. Now that we know about defects, we are more worried. Even thought over-all safety is probably better.
EDIT: And, now that we see how much 'cost pressure' has lead to safety cuts, I think we can be more worried now, because we can see how much cost trumps safety. Those cost pressures will remain once the current crisis is past.
No... It's hard to overstate how much safer flying (in well regulated countries especially) is than any other point in aviation history. It's incredible to look at the lists of accidents and incidents with aircraft from the 60s, 70s etc. - today the 737 Max is a huge outlier with the number of fatalities in two hull loss accidents, but if this was the 70s we'd probably have expected almost any model of plane to have had at least three or four similar accidents and a bunch more minor ones in the time the Max been around.
I don't know if it's time to worry, but consider my experience last week on a 737-MAX9 on an Alaska Air flight. Alaska Air is advertising on their website the following:
"Systemwide flexible travel policy Due to Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft inspections, we are offering a flexible travel policy if you would like to change or cancel your flight."
My wife and I did not take them up on that last week. Instead, we took the flight. Remember the days when you'd occasionally only have two passengers in a three-seat row? Yeah, those were the days, weren't they? How about if not only did my wife and I have the (exit) row to ourselves, there were entire rows that were empty. A guy one row ahead of us had the row to himself, and at the back of the plane there were probably three completely empty rows. Plenty of others had either a row to themselves, or just two people in the row. We were flying like it's 1999.
Worried? Nah, we weren't. Though I will point out that I only took my seatbelt off to get up and hit the head. I wasn't worried, but I'm not stupid.
If you're on a 737-max-anything, then worry a _tiny_ bit, otherwise, no. All their other planes have excellent safety records.
For comparison, Russia had a 2.29 fatal accidents/million departures safety rating in 2021, which is terrible, worst of all operating regions. 737-maxes had a 3.08 in 2019 when they got grounded. Every other plane in North America is averaging about 0.20 right now.
Granted, the 737-max's stat is based on a fairly low number of crashes. Regardless, the odds of a fatal crash are still vanishingly low on any given trip.
Break. Them. Up. This is a concern of national security at the highest level.
Boeing needs the Standard Oil treatment, which was a net positive for everyone involved.
That's actually exactly the wrong thing to do.
The problem, at least in this case, is that Boeing chose to break off what is now known as Spirit Aerosystems into a separate entity, and now Spirit has Boeing by the balls because Boeing can't replace them and has to deal with the consequences of their shitty manufacturing and QC.
The problem, at least in this case, is that Boeing chose to break off what is now known as Spirit Aerosystems into a separate entity
Spirit is nothing more than a basket of limited liability set up by Boeing for precisely such an ocurrence. Pretending that it's anything else is just buying into their BS corporate spin.
Your comment seems to imply that Spirit is owned or primarily owned by Boeing? But I can't find any support for that. See https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPR/holders
Am I misunderstanding your point?
Boeing originally owned the facility and sold it. Spirit was founded explicitly to buy and run the facility.
But Boeing doesn't appear to be maintaining any significant ownership or control over the company. They have other customers, including Boeings biggest competition. Usually the term "liability sheild" would impy that the subject still owns, controls, or otherwise profits from the companies operations, while shielding the subject from liability for the companies actions. It appears that Spirit is in fact very independant from Boeing at present.
A simple web search will show that's not true, unless you have some evidence to back up your claim?
Nah, we just need to break them up along the vertical: decapitate the company, and let the engineers run it again.
Is that going to directly address this particular problem? This mfg defect by a third party. They're already broken up in the context of this problem.
I cannot help but get the feeling that Boeing woes are like a canary in a coal mine for larger structural issues in the US government as a whole. Too much effort is put into spin, public relations and propaganda instead of actual just getting things done.
Boeing is about as representative of the US government, or country, as German soccer is for our government.
Hmm, is it? Boeing is in the category of too big to fail. I agree its not government per say.. but it is really not a private business either.
Yes, the US government is not Boeing. Yes, Boeing is a private business.
You are describing your general distaste for two entities and attempting to rationalize it.
My only guess that steelmans that is you think Boeing would cease to exist without its defense business.
As of 2020, 21% of the DoD's budget went to Boeing, and was 31% of Boeing's revenue:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/01/02/ho...
It's unlikely either organization would exist as it currently does without the other.
21% of the DoD's PROCUREMENT budget, not it's entire budget.
DoD 2024 budget request: $886b[1]
DoD 2023 procurement budget: 163.7b[1]
Procurement budget is 18% of total budget.
21% of procurement budget is $34.3b
That means that means that if the percentages still stood at the 2020 numbers then Boeing would account for *3%* of the 2024 DoD budget.
1. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/pentagon-leaders-2024-budg...
Wouldn't it be the canary in the corporate coal mine rather than the government coal mine? The corporation screwed up; the government is making them fix it, at an extreme level of completeness and correctness.
This is the legacy of Jack Welch. His short-term thinking to bolster stock price has become the new norm. There is a whole generation of CEOs who are following in Jack's failed footsteps.
Fun fact, an assortment of misdrilled holes is called a 'clusterfuck'.
Depends in the misdrills. Can be as easy as redrilling with a larger diameter to fix.
Not every Boeing issue is a clusterfuck.
Admittedly not that hilarious, but whoosh.
This whole comment thread kind of flew over my head.
Unlike the 737 MAX.
The 737 MAX was grounded, so it only flew under the radar.
They're also generally called "speed holes", except on airplanes and boats for some reason.
This title is extremely misleading, to the point of being factually incorrect. Boeing didn't find the fault, Spirit did and notified Boeing, and the problem only affects undelivered fuselages.
the problem only affects undelivered fuselages
The problem has only been observed on undelivered fuselages, because those are the ones that Spirit has on-hand to check. They are not confident the problem is absent in delivered aircraft.
You could also say, "the problem affects all of the delivered aircraft that have been checked for the problem".
From another article:
As of Friday, the "non-conformance" or quality defect had been found in 22 fuselages out of 47 inspected up to that point, spread between Boeing and Spirit, and may exist in some 737s in service, the sources said.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-boeing-delays-73...
Ah yes the tried and true scientific approach of "if we don't check it we won't find any problems puts hands over ears lalalalalala"
"We found no issues.......... (very quietly) becausewedidn'tlook"
Ah thanks, I hadn't heard that, as of last I saw I was under the impression that there was only one secondary source that had actually seen/talked with any primary sources: https://theaircurrent.com/feed/dispatches/boeing-halts-deliv...
Ok we've popped "Boeing" and "finds" off the head of the title above.
Oh, and here I was trying to be optimistic and say they're at least finding them now.
Turns out they're not even doing that.
I've read in a different place that the many problems could be a result of uncareful and miscoordinated outsourcing, particularly in the software domain. Is there any good information / insight on this?
Both this issue and issue with the door bolts were caused by Spirit, who Boeing outsourced the production of fuselages to. There's lots of info on the quality troubles with them going back years.
For example here is an article from May of last year [1] about a quality issue with Spirit that had been going on for 4 years. Here [2] is one from last October which says "The goal of the agreement is to stabilize Spirit’s production system, by stemming the flow of quality defects that have afflicted the 737 MAX and the 787 Dreamliner jet programs this year and positioning Spirit to ramp up to Boeing’s planned rate increases." The agreement was Spirit running out of cash and Boeing swooping in to save them despite their poor quality, because they were the only supplier for these fuselages. The financial times wrote a good article about it [3].
This is absolutely a story of outsourcing gone wrong. But they didn't outsource it to China or Mexico, they outsourced it to Kansas, USA.
1: https://theaircurrent.com/industry-strategy/boeing-spirit-re...
2: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
Both this issue and issue with the door bolts were caused by Spirit
This seems like a good time to mention that Airbus also uses Spirit AeroSystems.
Both this issue and issue with the door bolts were caused by Spirit
From what I've read, this is not what happened for the door bolts.
The New York Times report was that Spirit required access to some part of the fuselage masked by the door but did not work on the door. The Spirit request was granted, so Boeing workers removed the door, Spirit workers did what they intended to, then Boeing workers put the door back. There is a entry in the maintenance log of the plane about this. There should have been a routine check after this operation, but there was no mention of it in the maintenance log.
Thank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for.
I happen to have quite a bit of first-hand knowledge about aerospace rivets. AMA.
Your best guess: if we checked closely for this sort of thing on Airbus planes, would it be found? I'm guessing not, but then I'm wondering if I'm naive.
The article is light on details, only stating: "...a worker at a Boeing supplier flagged that two holes in the plane’s fuselage may not exactly meet specifications."
This statement is missing the information needed to grasp the seriousness of the issue. For example, if 100% of holes inspected (very unlikely), then 2 nonconforming holes out of hundreds of thousands of rivet holes on large craft might be acceptable and possibly even within acceptable quality limits; however, if the inspection plan calls for random sampling of two holes anywhere on the fuselage, and both of them happen to be nonconforming... not good.
Non-conforming rivet holes may have many underlying causes. Even if they are missed during panel fabrication, a nonconforming hole is likely to cause a rivet installation failure, which are likely to be caught by downstream quality control processes.
If by "closely", you mean "check every single rivet hole on a large commercial aircraft", you are going to quickly discover just how difficult this problem is. The tolerances are extremely tight, the holes are very small, and you are often actually dealing with multiple holes and sealant layers (a rivet holds multiple sheets together).
I would be stunned if any large aircraft on the planet has 100% perfect rivet preparation.
Is this as much of a non issue as I think it is? I'm thinking non structural bits of aluminum fuselage having a few extra holes is embarrassing but probably easily fixed/painted over and not that critical. Not generally a reason to get all upset and replace the part. But kind of embarrassing to have on a new part (i.e. get a discount).
I've been watching a lot of rebuild rescue on Youtube lately where a bunch of mechanics are trying to rebuild a decades old plane nicknamed the bird house (because birds were nesting in it for well over a decade and they got absolutely everywhere). That seems to involve a lot of rivets, usage of all sorts of power tools, cleaning up old lots of parts, and generally not being too delicate banging things back into shape. Massive project and makes you realize just how complicated even a relatively small plane is.
It depends on how pervasive the issue is. Is it just two slightly nonconforming holes, or is it random sampling that suggests many nonconformances?
It is not really feasible to test an installed rivet without destructive testing, because usually we are talking about blind rivets, which are remarkably complex fasteners. Think of them more like "small, ultra-precise one-time use machines", not "nails". This is part of the reason aircraft have so many rivets: each rivet is often capable of supporting a substantial fraction of the load where it is installed (sometimes even the entire load), but we install a huge number of them.
The fact that this defect was caught during what seems like normal inspection processes also moves it closed to being a "non-issue". Manufacturing defects happen all the time and liability is massive, so there are extensive inspection and quality regimes in place.
I haven't fully thought through this, but -
Why can't regulators try splitting Boeing up, anti-trust style? Part of the issue is that there's no competition. (Yes, Airbus, but tariffs seem to factor into purchasing decisions a lot.) If you create more competition, everybody should benefit.
If you create more competition, everybody should benefit.
Except shareholders
Sorry, shareholders. gg no re
Boo hoo. Own it.
Does Boeing's miltiary contract work also suffer from "deny the problem and ship it"?
Part of the reason military equipment is so very expensive is the labyrinth of requirements and verifications. Military contract work suffering from the same problems would require a lot of straight up fraud and document forging which is different that what seems to be happening to the commercial unit which is more laziness and corner cutting. Like there is a MIL-SPEC for pop-tarts that specifies how much filling there is and frosting coverage (finding stupid MIL-SPECs was great fun as a group of interns at Lockheed Martin, also reply-all email chains of memes which started causing outlook server problems before we were gently encouraged to stop)
The FAA shares a lot of blame for these problems by being negligent in their verification duties and delegating them to the companies they are verifying.
I would be very surprised if Boeing doesn't covertly have people looking for issues with Airbus planes and we'll soon be hearing about some of those in the coming months.
Not a smart strategy... Unless your competitor is doing something really very terrible and dodgy, usually being found out doing that kind of thing does much worse things to your own PR than anything you find does for theirs...
move fast and break things
Is the "Stonecipher plan" to make such bad airplanes that they are forced to get out of Commercial Aviation? Is that even possible with the huge number of Boeing airliners in service? I'm assuming that Boeing is still on the hook, legally, for parts, service, and complying with Airworthiness Directives (ADs: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/airworthiness_direc...).
“Trust me bruh! This is the last of the screw ups!! Oh and, the plane is totally safe! Legit!”
We need federal oversight for Boeing not just self reporting. Good on Spirit but Boeing should have caught this.
As of Friday, the "non-conformance" or quality defect had been found in 22 fuselages out of 47 inspected up to that point, spread between Boeing and Spirit, and may exist in some 737s in service, the sources said.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-boeing-delays-73...
Well, outsourcing fuselage assembly to Spirit worked so well!
Now you don't have any direct control over the processes, but at the same time you can't switch from Spirit to someone else because there is no other company that can do the manufacturing.
"There’s never just one cockroach in the kitchen."
What blows my mind is that no one brings up that the 737 Max was an at the hip response to Airbus A320neo. I remember Boeing didn't even have a response when Airbus has already secured some contracts and had actual demo flights. Then Boeing goes "me too" and cheats Airbus out of contracts due to the "no training" needed scam. I recall thinking to myself, this is bullshit. The Airbus planes were beautiful and the Max reeked of hacks and rush jobs. This should have brought more government scrutiny as anyone could have guessed they would do anything to get these to market asap. It's truly a shame and a black eye for American ingenuity.
But how can we blame this on DEI?
-Elon, probably
Boeing is like Teflon. The planes are literally falling apart and the stock hasn't even sniffed October's lows.
[dupe]
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39256114
Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back.
An engineering company run by a longtime manager with a background in accounting is in large part how Boeing got here. Fire the guy and get someone with a technical background in there.
Like this guy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
More like this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
Someone with an engineering background and a pinch of Vlad the Impaler;)
Whatever your opinion of Elon is, it’s extremely generous to say he comes from an engineering background and just flat-out wrong to say he comes from the type of traditional engineering background relevant to companies like Boeing (the PE type of engineering).
If you approve of Elon as a leader, he is basically the embodiment of “you do not need to be an engineer to run a highly technical company”
I think describing Elon as a small-e engineer (not designing powertrains, but at least understanding them) is accurate, and saying that an an engineering-first mindset is important for companies like Boeing and SpaceX would ring true. Engineering background is different than engineering mindset.
What criteria are we using to evaluate this?
If the anecdotes are accurate, and based on your own description, it seems Elon Musk is a CEO who makes an effort to thoroughly grasp the products his company develops. That's commendable. This doesn't necessarily make him even a small-e engineer, even in the context of the broader definitions used today. It certainly doesn't make him "someone of engineering lineage," as the original comment implied was essential for Boeing's success, or even "someone with an engineering background" like the comment I replied to.
It's also certainly not clear that Elon has an engineering-first mindset, nor that that would even be helpful for many of the businesses he runs. I can think of plenty of examples of Elon putting business above all else plenty of times, and I don't mean that as a dig: It's often the smart move for the monetary gain of all involved.
And just to be clear, this not a commentary at all on about whether Elon would be effective in running Boeing. To be blunt: I don't care about that conversation.
If A, then B.
Struggle with definitions all we want, Boeing needs a dose of Musk's attitude towards engineering and manufacturing. It is the most important thing they do, and I don't think the C-suite understands that. That's the most distilled version of what I'm saying. Musk is the best recent example of this attitude, but Henry Ford is an excellent older example.
If Elon's thoroughly understands the products his companies develop, he has an engineering-first mindset? That logic would also apply to many CEOs we wouldn't consider "engineering-first" CEOs.
For me, this is the only discussion. My focus is not at all on whether Elon would be a good fit for Boeing. I don't give a shit about that conversation.
I don't want Elon to run Boeing, that's never been part of my argument. I want leadership at Boeing that elevates engineers, understands that engineering is absolutely critical, and punishes bean-counters for pushing against a good engineering culture.
Also important for leadership is being a thin-skinned an emerald mine scion who believes in astonishingly racist tropes.
Personal attacks generally aren't encouraged on HN, even if you don't like the person.
We're evaluating a public figure's ability to lead. That's not a personal attack.
That's a personal attack. Talking about failures of planning in mass manufacturing, backlash due to public statements, and casual behavior about publicly traded companies and information related to them, those would be material criticisms that we can discuss civilly.
The claims of racism and inheriting some amount of money from a debunked emerald mine conspiracy aren't helpful on their own.
Racism is relevant for a CEO. Thin-skinned is relevant for a CEO. Whether they inherited wealth is relevant for how you judge their wealth.
Kind of? His dad was originally making the claim but is now saying something different.
You have a weird definition of conspiracy.
Then make the connection between racism and damages to a company relevant to the discussion, or being thin-skinned and the same.
There is zero evidence that Elon profited off the emerald mine his dad bought shares in, and the allegation is that he conspired to hide that money somehow. It's a normal definition of conspiracy.
They both have obvious consequences in a leadership position. Obvious consequences are enough.
1. I have never heard this "hiding money" part of it so I don't think that's the crux of it.
2. "Some guy hid his own money" is not a conspiracy. This is baffling.
Obvious potential consequences are not enough. This is the richest man in the world, surely you have an example.
What do you mean by the engineering mindset?
To me, it is the way of looking at the world that attempts to transform intractable real-world problems into tractable ones by translating them into the battle-tested model(s) of your field. For example, the RLC model of circuits is certainly not able to express all of EM physics but it sure is easy to solve problems in (although, I only did the degree, maybe working engineers dip back down into physics more often).
Anyway it isn’t obvious how Musk has that mindset, he seems obsessed with innovation rather than tradition, and he seems to have styled himself as some kind of polymath tech guy rather than an expert in any particular field.
Good point, I should define my terms better. I mean holding the product and how it's built above MBA stuff, which is the part I admire about Musk companies. If they want to cut costs, they typically find a new technique or new process to build a part, instead of reaching for typical MBA levers like new suppliers or outsourcing.
Your point about transforming intractability is cogent and I think we agree. To your last point about polymath tactics, you're right to a degree, but you can also watch Everyday Astronaut's SpaceX factory tour and realize that it's far more than a basic understanding, which is probably a big part of SpaceX's wild success.
People contain multitudes. While I would agree that Elon has more of an engineer mindset than other CEOs I’m still not convinced that would amount to much.
A look at Tesla build quality, or that ridiculous demo where the Cybertruck window smashed are just two things that immediately come to mind to cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to engineering. I think he’s a big picture guy, I absolutely think issues like those we're seeing with Boeing could happen under his watch.
I'm not saying Elon would be a good aerospace CEO, although he seems to do well at SpaceX. I'm saying that his attitude towards technical subjects ("this is ABSOLUTELY my problem and I should understand what we make") is what airplane-making CEOs should be going for.
Edit: airlines don't build planes
He does not understand them. You’ve fallen for his PR, I’m afraid.
Can you provide some substantive evidence on that? Just curious if you actually have a good example, or if you bought into the other PR.
What is PE?
Elon Musk did an undergraduate in Physics and Economics. What Engineering background?
Personal Branding Engineering, of course
Based on his tweets, Elon must have a degree in Uncivil Engineering.
He doesn't impale people either so I guess I am wrong on both counts. Maybe get a sense of humor:)
While you seem to be getting downvoted a lot, I think it's not unlikely. If Boeing appears to be in serious trouble financially (and I think it does), then you will see the gov't try to rescue them somehow. How many people would be willing to take over Boeing at this point? Of those, how many have experience at getting gov't contracts and running a company in the aero/space industry? It's a short list.
If it's not Elon, it will probably be Airbus, and there is a chance that the US feds will want someone more America-based instead.
This kind of CEO is more likely to make Boeing's safety even worse.
If you would hire Elon Musk as CEO, he would substitute all the pilots by FSD beta version 2.3.4, and change all the airplane seats USB chargers for a Neuralink plug.
I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants.
Cultural change goes much deeper than changing the CEO. Boeing might not be salvageable on the cheap side. Decapitating the company at levels 1-4 may not even be enough. It may require acknowledging that changing the flight envelope and software-patching it was a mistake.
This is a major can of worms on itself. This means a plane redesign, 6-8 years delay, and probably another round of WTO-unfriendly subsidy.
The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove.
In truth, there is no evidence for the claim. Jack Welch was as much an engineer as an asshole.
It is not about them being better leaders, but the engineer (hopefully) considering the efficacy of their design over bean counting.
Having an engineer as CEO can get you dumb decisions like thinking the Pentium4 Netburst architecture and dependency on expensive RAMBUS memory is a great idea.
Quite possible, and what's really ironic is that Grove's successor, Craig Barrett (who helped start the company with Grove), also an engineer, was a terrible CEO. He was the one who made a bunch of bad moves: P4/Netburst + RAMBUS, Itanic, refusing to adopt amd64 or make their own x64-64 ISA before AMD, etc. The company did poorly under his leadership and only turned around when his successor, Paul Otellini (an accountant IIRC) took over and moved to the "Core" CPU architecture.
Interesting that Grove’s company would go on to provide some of the best evidence that putting an engineer at the wheel is no magic bullet.
This is the guy that Boeing should have made CEO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally who has a much deeper background on the civil aviation side of things.
Turned down for the Boeing CEO position, went to Ford and carried them through the Great recession as one of the big 3 auto makers that did not need a govt bailout.
I'd say call him back, but he's probably enjoying retirement by now.
Some people at Boeing criticize Mulally though. 777 program involved already a lot of outsourcing. There's a nice documentary about the program on youtube, "21st Century Jet": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+je...
I don't think having an engineer as a leader is some golden ticket to success. Its ultimately what ruined Nortel for example.
Selecting an engineer doesn’t absolve the board of the responsibility to choose the right guy.
There are incompetent engineers, unethical engineers and there are engineers who are bad leaders.
But an accountant as CEO is not going to restore a culture of engineering excellence.
Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incentive system to further the goals of their choosing. Neither seems to call for deep understanding of neither. And no background absolves a CEO from building a surface understanding of all aspects of running the business.
TBF, from my experience with VPs, technical background might be a hindrance to executives. The guy who used to work on databases worries about persistence, even though nobody raised that issue. Networking background? Oh well, good that I know why we put this many bits into this field, despite it only needs a couple bytes and we can afford megabytes. Sure, they know their job enough to leave enough time for the actual question. I even understand why they first interrogate the room about some arbitrary cog in the machine. Still makes me wonder if there aren’t better ways to do this.
This is certainly a point of contention in modern schools of business thought, but the concept of a CEO who doesn't understand what the company builds is bizarre to me.
The CEO of Boeing, IMO, should probably have aircraft engineering experience, and, ideally, also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build.
And they should be open to "Hey, if you have engineering concerns about the airplanes we're building for the traveling public, you come to me!" style office visits. Someone with concerns about the "single sensor fault runaway trim" style system should have been able to bring it up, and have him understand it.
I know this isn't what Boeing has. And they've lost a lot. This is now increasingly clear to people outside aviation circles.
Does the CEO need to know these things? I would argue no. What needs to happen is the CEO needs to listen and trust the technical people that report to him.
There is a misalignment of priorities that will never be fixed as long as the primary incentive for the CEO is to maximize shareholder value. If you remove that, and force the primary incentiven to be safety over profits, the rest of the business will follow.
Meaningful penalties would address this nicely, but since CU legalized clear, over-the-table bribery, I suspect it'll never happen.
('CU' = Citizens United ruling (2010) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC)
If the CEO has no clue what the company does, those people could be blowing smoke up his/her ass
There has to be assurance of technical competency somewhere, and someone that has ultimate authority to get rid of the incompetent.
This doesn't disagree with your second sentence. The pursuit of profit seems to turn everything into a bank or gacha machine. Both safety and competency fall by the wayside.
That goes back to the trust of his people.
He has to trust his CTO (whatever that title is at boeing for their top engineer manager) to be the judge of that. The incentives have to align wrt quality engineering for there to be trust all the way down to the junior most engineer.
He should probably know enough to sense if the people who report to him are talking nonsense or not, and to properly weigh what they say.
I mean, what's going to happen if two technical leaders have a disagreement, and all he knows is how to count beans? How could someone with that background make an effective decision in that context?
People also tend to fall back on what they know in unfamiliar circumstances, and I don't think you want an aircraft-manufacturer CEO falling back on picking the "cheapest option" and accepting am unappreciated safety risk in the process.
In every case? No. Not every business, not every industry needs that.
In cases where the company builds machines that millions of people every day depend on to not die, yeah, the leadership should probably know some of this, if only to be able to realize when someone is trying to blow smoke up their ass.
Yeah, he should probably trust the people below him, but the cost of having that trust be violated is way too high. The consequences aren't just a bunch of people losing their jobs, maybe local business being depressed because the nearby widget factory closed. The consequences are airplanes falling out of the sky and lots of people dying. So he needs to be able to verify that the information being given to him, that he's trusting, is actually trustworthy.
And nevermind the economic effects here. If people stop trusting certain aircraft as being safe, they're not going to care whose name is painted on the fuselage.
For products/services tied to real engineering, that idea that you can maximize profits without leadership that understands it at a deep level is wrong. If you want to maximize profits in that kind of company, you'd better be able to build and sustain a culture to systematically knock out catastrophic risks stemming from real world physical constraints.
A management accounting guy is great at hedging financial risks, but that is what they'll always focus on, not the real world. What we are seeing with Boeing now is what happens if leadership is adrift without a good intuition about real world physical risks and what it takes to address them. You can't maximize profits while regularly causing catastrophic events.
A CEO of an aircraft manufacturer that does not know anything about flying and engineering is too disconnected from their core business (which is engineering planes, not managing techies), it does not trust and understand engineers and it is not trusted and followed by their technical reports. I saw that in technical fields, when you have a bozo as a manager (search for Steve Jobs interview on this matter) things go wrong, very wrong.
Why the pilot? When it comes to handling these machines, the pilots are one small corner. I would think that someone with experience keeping them safe and functional would be more on point these days. How about someone with the ratings for maintaining the machines? No pilot has ever inspected let alone installed a door plug.
It takes ~ 50 hours to get a pilot license and understand what is that. You don't need ATPL as a CEO, but flying regularly will keep you connected in a way that cannot be substituted, definitely not by the glasshouse that is a MBA.
Can you be a successful CEO of a car manufacturer if you cannot drive a car?
50 hours? To fly an airliner you need way more than 50 hours. This isn't bouncing around the circuit in a Cessna. Boeing sells aircraft for use by airlines. Short of a handful people who own their own, to fly an airliner you need to be employed by an airline. You generally need something more like 1500 to 3000 hours before an airline is going to trust you with their equipment.
https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/ho...
Read again. I said you don't need ATPL to be the CEO of Boeing. If you don't agree, state that, don't pick on the 50 hours because you are wrong there. And don't be pedantic about ATPL requirements, I am a pilot and I know how this works. I do support my original comment.
No, read the post to which I actually responded. It didn't say "pilot, any pilot, anyone with a ticket".
Boeing builds airliners. The "pilot" in the context of this threat a pilot rated to fly the "stuff they build".
If you're not flying it in passenger revenue service, I believe the requirements get a lot fuzzier - I would expect you'd need at a minimum a commercial multiengine cert to get rated for airliners, but I don't know that you actually need the ATP, unless you're going to fly in revenue service.
And, tbh, I don't care if the CEO of Boeing can take one around the pattern on their own. If they need a rated instructor with them to go fly one legally, so be it. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
But I stand by my statement that the CEO should be able to understand airplanes and fly them reasonably competently, if they're the CEO of a company that builds airplanes. I don't mean "press release of them flying it straight and level on autopilot" - but to actually be able to get it competently around the sky in manual flight modes.
I consider the financialization (turning into loan servicers and financial service providers as their main stream of income) of "every company who used to build things" to be one of the worst things that's happened to American industry as a whole.
Guess we run in different circles!
Agree 100%
There are plenty of engineers who are not suited for leadership positions, and inability to detach from the technical details and focus on the bigger picture is certainly something you'd want to watch out for. No one said these jobs are easy, or that the right people are easy to find.
But it seems just as likely that an accountant as CEO would be unable to detach from irrelevant details about accounting systems, cost savings, tax classifications, or whatever it is that low-level accountants worry about.
Lack of understanding of X almost inevitably leads to a lack of valuing of X. Then the incentives will become perverse.
The best bosses I've worked for are the minority who took the time to understand at least some of the technical side of things.
I'm always struck by the fact that I, as a lowly dev, am expected to understand the business yet the suits floating far above me think they don't need to know what actually happens down below. Bad mistake. Lack of knowledge is never a good thing.
Same for Sun Microsystems.
Nor is it an indicator for good business ethics: exhibit A, the VW Diesel scandal.
Sun Microsystems never had an engineering-career CEO; whether Scott McNealy, Ed Zander, or Ponytail ... all on the sales side. No doubt it had strong "CTO" type people. Though not in the CEO, chairman or president/COO positions.
IME it helps tremendously on close calls where the leader needs to pick a side, and the finance/sales/legal people have very clear numbers or other quantitative data and Eng has more subjective and hard to quantify concerns like quality.
That wasn't the only thing that ruined Nortel, but it sure as heck didn't save them.
So ip theft without re-percussions was not at the heart of that downfall. Honestly, if ip is that blatantly stolen, a company should have the right to penalty Tarif all products there IP flows into without licenses in perpetuity until a patent would have expired.
Ah yes the fantasy that an IC can just magic this all away.
This would likely result in a CEO with no pull and a CFO that had all the hard power to call the shots.
The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult.
A company most be able to do both: build a quality and safe product and make a margin. It can’t exist without revenue.
I’m guessing the real problem is somewhere between low quality or overworked and poorly trained line workers, complex systems, and a revenue strategy that obscures what the company is selling.
It takes more than a random ic manager to fix that — but I agree they should come from that past maybe.
Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to.
Other people with a similar perspective about rockets tried to convince Musk that as well. Thankfully he didn’t listen. You’re never going to realize gains that surpass the return on the S&P if you don’t take risks in business.
Musk is an interesting standards bearer for sanity.
Think what you will about Musk, but SpaceX has completely revolutionized space travel and will be in the history books a hundred years from now.
And dozens of his projects have utterly failed. Remember The Boring Company? Hyperloop? The-site-formerlly-and-forever-known-as-Twitter-until-Musk-ruined-it?
Throw an unlimited supply of darts and you're going to get a few bulleyes. Doesn't make you the worlds greatest dart's player.
You say dozens and name two, one of which (X) is still up and running with active user engagement. Many people have thrown darts, none have developed self-landing reusable rockets and outcompeted ULA or developed a satellite based global internet provider. Not even Google at its peak was able to come up with anything better than Project Loon. I’ll concede there’s a little luck in every venture, but what Musk and SpaceX have accomplished is well beyond luck and quite remarkable.
I mean, I dispute your implication that he's not destroying twitter (I mean, ever since he took it private we don't have hard numbers. But that itself doesn't suggest _good_ things).
But aside from that, and the two examples above, 1. x.com (the original) 2. tesla has been killing way more people since he retroactively became a founder (there was a delay while existing products moved through the pipeline) 3. solarcity 4. optimus 5. neuralink (well, ok, it hasn't failed yet. But _I'm_ not betting on it...) 6. the Tham Luang cave rescue 7. crypto 8. his relationships with his kids / exes
TBF, spacex appears to be his baby, and it has done _much_ better than I ever thought it would. There are rumors about the existence of a whole team there preventing him from breaking things, and personally, I believe them. But I have nothing _remotely_ like proof. And even if those rumors are true, spacex appears to have been his idea, he hired the first batch of people, etc. He can definitely take loads of credit for it, even if I don't think he deserves as much of said credit as he clearly thinks he deserves.
The Boring Company is still very much alive.
I'm no fan of Musk, but it's hard to argue that SpaceX hasn't been revolutionary, to the point where I question if there's anyone else who could have pulled that off. Moving focus to The Boring Company or Hyperloop feels a little like whataboutism. No one succeeds at everything they do. Musk is in the unique (and lucky, for him) position that he can throw a lot of darts and lose a lot of money, but keep on going even if many of his bets don't work out.
And I don't think the usual "throw shit at the wall until something sticks" thing applies to Musk. Certainly he's had some things that slid to the floor, but he hardly has an "unlimited" supply of darts. And even if his finances were infinite, he still only has 24 hours in a day, and can only focus on a certain number of things. By and large, the things with a lot of his focus do seem to be doing pretty well.
Twitter is clearly a huge blind spot for Musk; while I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand, it does seem like an outlier. Regardless, it's still running, somehow, when I expected it to have been shut down by the middle of last year. While I know people who have stopped using it, I know more people who still use it and get value out of it, regardless of the negatives since Musk bought it.
Two of those three are operating and possibly even growing. The other was thrown out for others to pursue rather than Musk companies.
Surely there are better examples of failures than these? Personally, I would have focused on "FSD". That one has been a huge debacle with a lot of potential to get worse.
You forgot, treating Tesla like piggy bank. That company has a rusty frame. Still looks shiney.
As will Theranos. That's not really a great indicator of how good or useful something is.
Inane comparison, SpaceX will be in the history books because their rockets demonstrably work. They've already beaten every other rocket organization on the planet, including the state-run ones.
Boeing will be as well for the 737 Max, in the history books that is. And so far, Space X only got more junk up to places we already did junk up to before. SpaceX ahs yet to get us some place we haven't been in space, or at the very least one we have not been to in a long time. By themselves, if they deliver portions of the mission equipment they are a supplier like everyone else.
SpaceX achieved impressive things, the over glorification so rubs me the wrong way. And equalizing SpaceX successes with Musk a person does way more than just rub me the wrong way.
It got us to a place where the cost of a rocket launch is 10 times less than it was before, and soon it will get us to 100 times less. It's just a matter of time that this is leveraged to bring us to new physical places.
He is the person that single-handedly made the decision to start a rocket company, decided on the initial architecture, hired the key people and finance the whole operation.
Maybe the secret sauce is to not build a rocket company at all. You build a Mars Exploration company that gives people a purpose and objective beyond just money. A company where quality/efficiency/price have a direct benefit to a broader mission.
It's a rocket company that tells people it's a Mars exploration company.
No matter how profitable building good planes is, building slightly worse planes that are bought in equal numbers is more profitable. The profit maximizing move is to lower quality until sales suffer more than profitability is increased. And if you have a strong reputation, and feedback cycles on product quality are long, lower quality might take a long time to actually be noticeable in sales.
Boeing profits and sales had been on a steady upwards trajectory for 20 years until 2019:
https://www.helgilibrary.com/charts/boeing-profits-sales-qua...
The trick is building worse planes may result in future costs to fix the problems. It's much less costly to bolt the door plug in before it falls out.
They got so lucky with that one.
At least they get to blame it on COVID. The real benchmark is relative to Airbus.
Is there another data point or are you just basing this off Boeing's issues?
The other datapoints have been merged into Boeing or they went away, Lockheed hasn't made a passenger plane for decades.
Gulfstream doesn't really count I think, because it isn't in competition with either Boeing or Airbus.
I don’t think this a technical problem - it’s a matter of changing culture.
It's frequently framed as an issue with Boing now having an accounting-driven culture instead of an engineering-driven culture. In that framing a CEO with engineering background is a logical choice to effect that culture change.
It was arguably under Muilenberg, an engineer, that many of the current issues with Boeing's culture were either created or allowed to flourish. I think it is "frequently framed" as an engineers-vs-accountants thing by engineers or others who like to think that STEM people can do no wrong.
I am an engineee of sorts, and have zero illusions about the shit engineers can cause, and do.
I think the real problem here is over-reliance on cost-savings as a single dimension of quality.
Cost savings and quality live on different scales so.
If a customer wants to buy thousands of a widget at $1500 and you usually sell them at $2000 a widget but you can move the slider on maintainability or make an agreement that the customer accepts some reduced quality -- if that's something the two businesses can agree on and it's not a negligent change to make then it's probably worth prioritizing that. I think we might agree on that.
Trying to figure out what to do in any given business situation is usually challenging because the devil is in the details. It happens that in this particular case, Boeing should be checking that their supplier installs bolts and drills holes correctly because their supplier has screwed it up so many times. But in a lot of industries, cheaping out on materials is a reasonable thing to do if your customers agree it's a reasonable thing to do and it's not going to kill anyone.
Exactly. If ordered to do so, a good engineer will be better at cutting costs to the bone than the greatest MBA.
It sounds like Boeing has mastered the art of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing ... at 30,000 feet.
Not even accounting driven. It's MBA driven.
Accounts ask how much things cost and go from there. MBA's figure out how much things need to cost to make their spreadsheet work and tell you that's what you get.
Which is what happened at Boeing. They told the engineers they were going to develop the 787 for half the cost of previous models (we are very very smart). And it took twice as long and cost twice as much. Given that they couldn't afford a clean slate redesign of the 737 even if they wanted to. The result is the 737 Max which will cost them more than a clean redesign would have.
The point of the 737max was that it was a brownfield design which wouldn't require recertification by airlines of all the pilots who are certified for 737min planes.
A 7B7 greenfield narrow body plane would probably have been faster to design and a better plane in lots of "don't lie to the pilot and fly into the ground when a sensor is busted" ways, but would have required all airlines to re-certify their pilots, which is both expensive and would have caused the airlines to consider airbus and boeing on the merits...
The MAX cost the airlines more than recertification would have.
So the MBA's cost the stockholders money there too.
yeah, I'm an accountant (not an MBA) and we get a bad rap for this
corp accountants don't care about cutting costs, we just care about making sure things are presented/tracked in accordance with gaap
we may help identify/track costs but we aren't usually tasked with cutting costs
Exactly - management culture and engineering culture are opposite ends of a spectrum.
I’d actually say it’s the safety culture that’s missing. Go have a phone call with someone at Shell and they’ll ask you if you’re in a safe place to have a call and if you know where the emergency exits are before starting the call. And the safety culture comes from the top regardless of if you’re an engineer or lawyer, or finance exec.
Sounds great! I introduced bike helmets for my team members to wear at office for additional safety and everybody’s loving it!
And that’s the crux of the problem. They actually need one another but the egos on both sides refuse to acknowledge that.
Being an engineer does not make someone a good person, though. Engineers are perfectly able to cut corners. Putting an engineer in the CEO seat won’t solve anything if there is no culture of responsibility. The problems continued under Dennis Muilenburg, which AFAICT has 2 degrees in engineering and none in business management.
I don't buy the oft-repeated claim that you can re-make a company simply by replacing the CEO. I don't believe that CEOs in large companies have much influence on the company's direction, except in terms of decisions to downsize/outsource, how to use money, and who's on the board. There's only so much one person can do (and accordingly, I think all big-company CEOs are vastly overpaid).
Moving the deckchairs in the boardroom isn't going to solve systemic problems in a company.
You can't "re-make" a company by replacing the CEO/CxO, but I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the influence of the c-suite either. What they care about and talk about filters down, often through unofficial channels of communication, and it does have an impact on how front-line employees do their work. Of course, this does take time and often involves some changes in management as well.
I've been watching the Post Office Horizon Inquiry sessions, and reading transcripts. From what I've seen, a completely new board would have no noticeable effect on the PO; they'd have to remove most of the management. It looks as if the company ethos is driven by line management.
Well, that really means tearing the company up completely. I can't see how a new board could effect reform. And replacing all the middle management would destroy the company.
And as you say, it takes time for a new culture to move through the layers; but the PO doesn't have time. Does Boeing? I realize the companies are very different, but both have marinated in an unhealthy culture for a long time.
If replacing all of middle management to effect an essential change will destroy a company, then that company maybe needs to be destroyed.
Because that's how the CEO makes big change happen: management -- from the C-suite down to line managers -- needs to get on board with that change. If they refuse, they get fired and are replaced by people who will carry out the change. If this process will take too long to save the company, then... again, maybe the company needs to fail.
"Replacing the CEO" isn't a panacea because most CEOs are pretty average, but when an exceptional CEO does take the helm, they can pull off some amazing feats (e.g. Satya Nadella).
I agree that most people are "average" (truism?), and that some are exceptional. And I agree that exceptional people sometimes achieve amazing feats in their field of endeavour. But what's so special about CEOs?
The scale of their impact when they are exceptional
What about Apple?
Company culture is a top-down sort of thing.
Take a simpler thing: if a new CEO sets an example of taking a decent amount of time off and promoting that as what people should be doing, because they value mental health, then that will gradually trickle down into upper and middle management, and down to the rank-and-file.
Management types who resist that will be replaced or marginalized, because this aspect of culture matters to the CEO and this is something they want to promote. It won't happen overnight, but ultimately management will be filled with people who are taking solid amounts of vacation and push their reports to do the same.
A CEO that wants to push an engineering-first/safety-first culture will be firing executives and management types that try to hide problems or push through things that don't meet the quality bar that the CEO is looking for. This sort of shift will not happen overnight. It can take years. Whether or not a company like Boeing can survive this sort of change, and if they even have years left to make that change, is another question, of course.
But I argue the opposite: the CEO (critically, with the unwavering support of the board, which requires the support of shareholders) is the only person who can make this sort of shift.
I'd argue they need an effective engineering culture, and leadership that enables and values and fights for it, not a former-engineer figurehead. Good engineers within Boeing need to be enabled to do their job properly, within normal business constraints, and bad engineers need to be removed. The business needs to understand that good engineering is a necessity and a profit centre in aerospace.
I don't know how they'd achieve this change. The company seems to have rotted from the head down since it merged with McDonnel Douglas, and its possible that the senior leadership lack the self awareness to comprehend the problem.
I think the MD merge gets the blame by many, however, it seems as though the shift in the market that started around the same time to optimize shareholder value at all costs is really to blame.
I think it's both in a sort of chicken and egg sort of situation. The MD execs taking over Boeing had a terrible effect on safety culture, but the reason the MD execs took over in the first place was because of this shift in the market that you describe.
If the pre-MD Boeing management had managed to retain control of the company things may have been ok from a quality and safety perspective... but the stock would have declined because they would have refused to chase short-term quarterly success at the expense of the long term.
Move headquarters back to Puget Sound. It’s the only way.
The senior leadership does not lack the self awareness, they know exactly that they are bad and they act to cover it as best as possible. I saw this up close in other similar companies (manufacturing moved to all non-technical leadership).
Boeing apparently can't withstand the immense quarterly financial scrutiny it is under without making dangerous engineering trade offs. Time to take the company private?
At 420?
I think you think Boeing's purpose in life is to make planes. I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs and short term traders. If airplanes come out of the company, it's a random side-effect.
Plausibly, yes.
Nope. Not even on the radar. Stockholders, maybe. Not short term traders. Short term traders have no say on the makeup of the board, nor on executive compensation. They therefore have zero input into the direction of the company.
I think you also need to be expecting the CEO to "clean house" at the top if you realistically want anything to change.
The CEO may set the culture, as much as that is set from the top down, but by the time a company actually starts having problems visible to the outside, its entire suite of executives, VPs, etc, have optimized their career for the sort of problematic attitude the previous CEOs demanded.
Interesting. Last night I watched the excellent 2018 biopic "First Man" (starring Ryan Gosling) about Neil Armstrong and was struck by NASA's selection criteria for Gemini and Apollo astronauts: they required pilots with an engineering background.
Frank Borman, chosen for Gemini and Apollo missions, "earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point." [Wikipedia]
"After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, Borman became senior vice president for operations at Eastern Air Lines. He became chief executive officer of Eastern in 1975, and chairman of the board in 1976. Under his leadership, Eastern went through the four most profitable years in its history...." [Wikipedia]
The "engineer CEO" you speak of is the one who was at the helm when all the mess kicked off.
Muilenburg was an aerospace engineer by training, that is how he ended up at Boeing. To be fair, though it sounds like he was on the management track early on, so not sure how much engineering he did after graduation.
For what it's worth, in "Flying Blind", the book written about the first round of 737 max issues, the author has a pretty negative outlook on Calhoun as being mostly aligned with Muilenburg.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/books/review/peter-robiso...
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...
Can ELI5 why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes? It doesn't make sense to me (I mean, it might in case of offensive takeovers, but who's gonna take over Boeing?!)
My understanding is that this is seen as a cost of acquiring the right expertise. “Pay peanuts, get monkeys” kinda thing. They want the best of the best, and according to their perception these people can do a number of things with their time. Why would they work on this thing instead of their own thing, or a number of other people’s things? By choosing to work with you they close other doors in their life, so you need to both sweeten the deal and make the risk of things not working out between you reasonably low. Not so low that the expert is not incentivised to work hard for you, but low enough that you can convince someone to risk it getting in business with you.
In short they agree to it because if they don’t they can’t get the right caliber of person through the door.
No I don't buy this.
The shareholders would be better off if they promised a $800m incentives-based / performance-based package (e.g. stock options etc.) than promising $80m if the CEO performance sucks.
And any CEO rejecting this offer, is a huge red flag.
$800M? Can you imagine the public howling at that kind of CEO comp?
The more hilarious part is the incentive to pump the stock and leave someone else to hold the bag would be even worse.
This would reach crypto-scales pumping.
Yeah, if you're building a product that's supposed to last 50 years stock value in year one is far from the whole story.
I am not sure that this will work unless the company is considered a highly desirable place to work for. A prospective CEO might simply walk over to another company which has a more lucrative deal. So you might end up with people who are either desperate, or those who are highly able and see that as a challenge. The second might be very rare.
I'm not saying it is a bad idea, but CEOs face the same problem as politicians - while they are responsible for whatever happens (good and bad) they are not actually in control of very much.
A bad CEO can destroy a company in a few years. A good one can set up years of profits. But the "can" there does some heavy lifting - sometimes a CEO will walk in to a company and there just won't be any opportunities. Eg, you take over a restaurant chain then the COVID overreaction happens. Not much the CEO can do.
Long and short, I can see why a good CEO might go for guaranteed compensation rather than big payoffs for good results. They can't guarantee good results. Nobody can make that sort of promise.
I don’t know about the relative ratios between the two but i believe you need both.
From a perspective of a succesfull CEO candidate with a proven track record joining your company is risky. There might be something structurally wrong with your industry, or there might be some “ticking bomb” with your business (like some hidden technological flaw, or personality conflict, or regulatory/compliance risk, or the risk of some catastrophy hitting your factories/offices) Many of these are already present before the CEO candidate joins and there is nothing they can do about them.
Basically your business might stink and “explode” in the face of the new CEO. On the other hand the CEO candidate presumably have some other options. You are usually not recruiting CEOs from the literal bread line.
Let’s think through a concrete example. You tomp is a succesfull business person and you estimate you will conservatively earn $200m in the next 5 years. You have unique skills and they offer you a chance to become the CEO of Boeing today. You have what you belive is a good plan to restore Boeing to its former glory and the pay package will net you if everything goes well $800m in the same time frame. Sounds good, isn’t it? But you are worried that some gizmo in the airplanes already out of the factory might have some flaw. Maybe costs were cut and maybe some part you have never even heard about fails, kills a few thousand people a year after you joined and tanks the whole company. You don’t know what is the chance of that happening, nobody knows. What you know is that if that happens you will earn in your estimate $0. If that happens you might need to sell off your yacth, and tell your daughter she has to drop out of that lovely swiss private school she loves so much.
Will you join?
Corporate boards are a notoriously small world. These are buddy deals. Global corporations reap structural harvests and the guy who gets to be on top gets the prize. Their network is their biggest asset. It helps a corporation to have well connected board members, CEOs and directors, sure. So they get paid for it. Network effects -> winner takes all.
It's fairly fundamental capitalism, right?
The world is not overflowing with people who can even theoretically lead a $77bn company and will be acceptable candidates in the eyes of the board/shareholders. So you will need to pay accordingly if you want one.
It's like wondering why pro sports teams give megabucks guaranteed contracts to superstars. There aren't a lot of them and there is a lot of money at stake when it comes to running a successful pro sports team. So they cost a lot of money to acquire.
I am by no means defending this. Whether or not one thinks there are better alternatives to capitalism, it's hard to deny that capitalism produces some pretty crap outcomes.
In addition to that, companies want CEOs to take some level of risk to grow the company, And to take the fall when needed for bad decisions / press / accidents and incidents. The golden parachute, as is my understanding, is an all but explicit pay to take responsibility and be the fall guy / resign with many a hollow sounding apology letter when and as needed from shareholder perspective (which may not overlap from our own perspective on when that would be needed or appropriate).
Plus everything op said about capitalism and market.
I keep seeing "responsibility" brought up but what responsibility do you mean? I have never seen a CEO suffering unpleasant consequences of their own failures. It's always a golden parachute and failing upwards for these people.
I strongly disagree. It's a matter of surrounding yourself with capable people and there's a huge factor of financial inertia. I guarantee you most HN-ers could run Google or Apple for 5 years without causing their value to plummet.
Because both the CEO and the board recognize that he might need to be the designated scapegoat in a future failure.
Yep, same deal with CISO’s, but in their case it’s even more obvious.
The small shareholders don't have enough shares to make an impact and the large shareholders view it as a cost of doing business. Remember, they aren't investing in moral outcomes, just profits. With the DoD funding Boeing in perpetuity, there is zero incentive or consequences, so it's still a "good" investment...for now.
I think it's because when they get the contractually guaranteed "golden parachute", the board thinks this CEO is gonna work out great so why argue, and since it's not at all uncommon it doesn't seem like a red flag at all; it's the norm. By the time it actually happens, they have a contract that says it will happen, which is rarely overturned.
Because the people they want have options. If you want a hotshot CEO who could go and work for Google and make tens of millions per year, you have to sweeten the pot to get them to accept.
So they have golden parachutes which say "for any reason, except fraud or other criminal actions, we guarantee you'll get $X millions when you leave".
You don't screw over your peers. Those that control the big investment funds or have a private fortune probably liked having a golden parachute themselves at some point.
Same as when normal people quit a job they don't like it's better to go quietly and be glad you are out rather than burn bridges.
Small time investors have zero say. Large investors are in the same social class as the ceo and scratch each others backs.
At this point pre-emptively firing any Jack Welch associated executive would probably be a good idea
Why stop there - the man was such poison, that such top-down layoff should include any private chefs, baristas or garbage guys that dealt with him.
That's a bit too much. Wouldn't it be better to each year rank all the executives by their proximity to Jack Welch, and then fire the worst 10%?
Will there be a Six Degrees to Jack Welch site?
I see what you did there.
Clearly you're going for some snark, but some form of purge would be a good signal that the company isn't putting up with bullshit ideology.
Who’s going to purge them? They’re the idiot execs in charge everywhere now! Jack Welch was a good name in business management circles, and still is to this day, even though his theories and work have not withstood the test of time to regular folks like us.
He's an order barker. He won't move the needle one point on that culture. All GE people understand is hierarchy.
Ya, Calhoun has been there four years already, so he's had plenty of time. Also, he decided to continue outsourcing to Spirit despite Spirit's known issues. Everything in your post indicates he's not inclined to make fundamental alterations to the post Stonecipher strategy which fits with all this.
Spirit is technically not Boeing. It's Boeing.
Calhoun's been at Boeing as a Director since 2009. Dude's definitely seen some things.
That's why I hate the MBA types and the whole executive caste with a passion
It's not just about safety, it's about the flying experience and environmental responsibility.
If you think "flying sucks" it's probably because you've flown in a 737 and similar (A320) aircraft.
Many people find it highly stressful to fly in a 737-class airplane because the curve of the fuselage is circular. My neck starts to lock up just thinking about it, but you don't have the same problem riding in a car, bus, or train because those vehicles have straight sides. Modern aircraft like the A220 and E2-Jet have a shape compatible with the human body such that today's "regional jets" feel more like riding in a widebody airliner than a 737. It's the kind of thing that's hard to believe until you experience it for yourself.
The 737 is exceptionally loud, particularly for the flight crew, but also for the passengers and innocent people on the ground. If you think flying sucks it could be because you remember walking out of a 737 with your ears ringing -- and nobody told you it doesn't have to be that way.
The A320 has a reliable fly-by-wire system with numerous benefits, not least the plane being able to automatically cancel out some turbulence, another small thing that leaves you feeling better when you reach your destination.
The 737 struggles to take off under good conditions, requiring much more runway than many much larger planes. Next summer you'll see headlines that "airplanes" are grounded at some airports in the US Southwest, you should replace "airplanes" with "737s".
Airplane manufacturers have wasted enough resources on widebody airliners that nobody wants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380
and the industry needs to get real to the fact that narrowbody airliners are responsible for most of the flights and most of the social and environmental impact of aviation: domestic flyers in the U.S. deserve something better than a 1967 design.
Or maybe the market has spoken. Similar to how people complain about lack of legroom but proceed to book with airlines that have less legroom because it's cheaper, they're happy to fly on 1967 design planes to save a buck.
When you're booking a plane ticket, you don't have much information about the legroom amount. Maybe you can tell somewhat from the airline, but most airlines have a variety of different planes, and I don't know how to use that information to determine legroom.
I don't fly a lot but legroom and comparable CO2 emissions have become attributes that price search engines show. This flight emits 12% less than comparable flights etc.
Google flights shows it eg. "Below average legroom (29 in)"
For future reference, Aerolopa.com has the majority of seating maps for the majority of airlines.
The market has spoken only in the sense that air travel used to be prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people, and now it isn't.
For many trips, there are no reasonable alternatives to air travel. If you live in New York and really want to treat your kids to a trip to Disney World in Florida, you can drive, and can take a train/bus, but you'll be burning a significant amount of your precious time off work on travel.
The interesting thing is that I don't believe air travel is all that much cheaper now than it was in, say, 2010, when things were quite a bit more comfortable. Maybe not as comfortable as pre-deregulation, but certainly better than today, with more comfortable seats and more leg room.
Has it become much more costly to run an airline over the past decade? Maybe? I don't know. But if not, this doesn't seem to be "the market", at least not in the way a healthy market, with ample competition, would behave.
Actually according to the BLS since Jan 2010, the CPI has went up 42% whereas airline fares have dropped 7.5%. That means adjusted for inflation airline fares have actually dropped 35%. I would say that arguably counts as "that much cheaper". Whether that's worth the decrease in legroom (unknown amount of inches) is another matter.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SETG01
I don't think there is a good vernacular idea of what "competition" means but something that I'm sure of it that it takes a whole lot of of it to benefit consumers. A classic example of fake competition is that between cable TV, satellite, and now vMPVDs. Today you might have some choice but the choice is always about the same price for the same bundle, nobody is offering anything different.
10 years ago I would fly a lot of out of the airport in Ithaca which had good connections to hubs at PHL, DTW and IAD which could get you anywhere.
Today the ITH airport looks close to dead, the only flights are to NYC, one to EWR where I've had to exit and then re-enter security every time I've made a connection there. It's almost unthinkable that I'd take the plane to NYC if I was actually going to NYC because bus service is highly competitive to to the city. Although there are no longer national carriers like Greyhound and Shortline (going to Detroit is hard now) but for the point-to-point route there are numerous buses at different price points some of which are budget like the Chinatown bus and others are premium like the bus that stops at the Cornell Club.
I can find something positive in losing our local airport in that SYR has greatly expanded and now has numerous low-cost and ultra-low cost carriers. For once I can get on a plane and know absolutely it won't be a 737. I can fly Jetblue to LA for less than it ever cost on Delta.
Yet I can point to many signs that the industry has not been thinking clearly or that the choices it has been offering people are not real. I'd point as exhibit #1 the experience you'll have boarding a plane on American Airlines at their hub at PHL where they'll spend 20 minutes reading from a very long and complicated list of who is allowed to board in the plane under what order under whatever circumstances. Turns out there is a definite hierarchy for all the credit cards you might have with American Airlines or with some airline that got bought by American Airliners not to mention many different levels you can be in the frequent flier program, many kinds of tickets, etc.
We know if they just boarded the plane outside in we would all be on our way a few minutes earlier and it would not demand so much of the staff boarding us and they might have fewer cases of staff rage quitting because they are being abused like this, etc. But instead it's an important opportunity to rub the average traveller's nose in shit, prove how little worth they have compared to other people's in the airline's eyes, etc.
Before 2008, airlines offered just economy and first class on domestic routes, refusing to sell you anything a little bit more expensive that would be just a little bit better because they didn't want to create competition for first class. The proliferation of Economy+ and other service tiers after the financial crisis was actually a sign of sanity, of the industry getting more flexible. Still the major airlines form a cartel where they won't compete for better service in economy because they couldn't afford to give up a single first class flyer to a more humane coach.
+1 on everything you said.
I think there's just a lot more competition among airliners post airline deregulation. The costs for most airliners is fixed (pilots, crew, aircraft, fuel, airport fees, A&Ps, etc) and so you're competing on small things like aircraft seat configuration, trim, routes, and prices.
Airlines can just pass higher operating costs onto customers rather than making a capital investment that would make service more economical in the long term.
And Boeing was working on a replacement for the entire 737-757 line, a brand new airplane using many of the same concepts as the 787 "Dreamliner" but it took a long time and in 2011 Southwest blackmailed them if they need to retrain their pilots then they might as well buy Airbus.
Sources. First for the replacement airplane.
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2011/02/11/boei...
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/civ...
Page last modified: 07-07-2011
Second, the blackmail.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/legal...
This is, of course, the legalese version of the blackmail mentioned above.
Obviously 2011 Boeing couldn't see into the future, but I do wonder if standing firm against Southwest -- even if they went and bought Airbus -- would still have been better for the company in the long run.
Wikipedia says Southwest has the fourth-largest fleet in the world (today, dunno about in 2011); while that's a lot, that's still only 800-some planes; did Boeing really let an airline with a 7%-or-so share of their business hold them over the barrel? I guess that's not entirely unreasonable, but... it's not great.
And if you look at the breakdown, more than 70% of Southwest's fleet still consists of 737-700 and -800. Boeing in 2011 was "taking too long" with their next-gen plane, and yet, 13 years later, Southwest is still largely on the previous generation. Maybe their blackmail was more a bluff. Hell, maybe at this point they regret their blackmail; it possibly would have been better for them to just wait for a new plane, or not bother and just go with Airbus.
But really, the problem didn't start in 2011. They'd already rode on the coattails of the 737/737NG design for too long. They should have started on a new narrowbody design even earlier. Sure, hindsight, and all that.
American airlines don't buy new planes. Third-world airplanes buy new airplanes and once they've taken depreciation for them they sell them to American airlines. Even if they quit making new 737s, Southwest could be still flying old 737s 40 years from now.
It's tempting to say that some of the worst airports in the US (say Newark) are "third-world" but the truth is that a bad airport in the third world is often a lot better than any airport in the U.S.
This prof was talking about defects in the last generation 737
https://www.ithaca.com/news/cornell-expert-boeing-737-plane-...
Not sure what you mean by American airlines not buying new planes. In 2011:
https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2011-12-13-Boeing-737-MAX-Logs-...
-- Southwest orders 150 737 MAX airplanes and 58 Next-Generation 737s
-- Southwest becomes launch customer; scheduled to take first 737 MAX delivery
-- Largest firm order in Boeing history
Since then, they operate 223 of the 737 MAX (16% of deliveries) and have 495 on order, which is about 10% of total orders. At a single airline. United has 159 and has 388 on order. Then comes Ryanair with 136 delivered and 374 ordered. These are not third world airlines.
Neither did the plans start in 2011. Rather, they ended there.
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/25906-why-can-t-boeing-ju...
I was just commenting to a friend (who was on a massively delayed flight out of SFO yesterday) that, when I'm in Economy, I want a window so I can see what's going on outside. I feel anxious during delays and just want to get off the ground.
When I'm in business class, I simply don't care what's going on outside. Let me know when we land.
Now, bear with me, because this might sound obvious, but I don't think it is. You can have in-flight-entertainment in Economy. You can have videos playing on your tablet or whatever. We have far more distractions than ever before. You can read your book, listen to your music. The seats are comfortable enough in the first hour of your delay. At 5'10" I have sufficient legroom.
I think the difference is the seat pitch. I don't consider myself claustrophobic, but staring at a seatback 2 feet in front of my face just makes me want to see what the hell is going on to get me off the ground and to my destination. I think this is far more of an issue than the curvature of the fuselage.
Literally none of those issues were a problem for me and I've flown a lot over the past 30 years.
The #1 issue for me is leg room, being unusually tall. Headroom was never a problem :-)
I said this in a previous thread, a QA/QC/SOP firm either has a culture where nobody would dare violate SOP or it doesn’t. It’s not about “admitting” a problem, they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect. But as the QA guys where I work say, they are a cost center.
There are two real questions here, can Boeing strictly follow their QA/QC regime and remain profitable. Second, can they get through their current period where FAA inspectors have set up shop on their premises and are now effectively another layer of supervisors. They’re in the stage now where the FAA are on the shop floor basically as cops to ensure Boeing actually does what they said they would do via the documentation in their Quality suite. They either have the war chest or the financial backing to pull that off without an immediate price increase or they’re toast.
it's great to have those protocols, but when employees are retaliated against for bringing issues with no corrective changes made, what's the point in having the protocols?
Any of that happens at the supervisor or mid-level manager level and should be taken to HR. By complying with bullying, the employees are not only committing a federal crime, they also risk being debarred by the FAA. That means they no longer work in the Aviation Industry.
HR retaliates frequently
Then you man up and do the whistleblower thing. And you do it having established a written record with HR. The choice between keeping my job vs maiming / killing strangers due to my own negligence is a no-brainer for me.
I'm glad you have the financial stability to be able to take that (IMO admirable) principled stance, but I think it's unreasonable to expect that's the case for everyone, or even most people.
I'm glad you're ok with killing and injuring others so you don't have to face the discomfort of finding another job.
I've quit jobs on principle twice. No safety net, no savings. Just a belief I would be better off without that job. Turns out, I was right.
Great, so you can be a Boeing employee that tried to raise the issue on multiple occasions, you have the documentation to prove that, you rage quite, and then attempt to blow the whistle, but the planes crash anyways. What a pathetic human you are for taking so long to grow a pair.
You should grow up and realize not everyone is the same. So you've rage quit twice out of "principles". Great. What changed at the company you left? Some would rightfully call you a quitter for not seeing through with the changes.
We can all have views on either end of this, but it doesn't make any of us RIGHT.
More likely you need mass worker movements, and work toward forming them (wildcat or otherwise) not some simple 3 steps for solving executive malice and greed with processes handed to you by the state and your boss
Yeah, I'm not sure why people think that HR does not behave as instructed by leadership
Boeing has gotten Too Big To Fail, way too much military/space contracts. The US government can't let them fail because then the only remaining space capability would be SpaceX who can't fulfil everything (and is under control of an increasingly erratic billionaire).
What should happen is that the government should do it just like with the banks in the late '00s: assume control over Boeing+Spirit Aerosystems if not outright nationalize it (without compensation to shareholders, to incentivize other shareholders of other companies to make sure their leadership doesn't prioritize profits over safety), enact sweeping changes, and then after a few years either sell the remains off again or keep it under government control.
When was the last time you remember the USG nationalizing a large corporation?
Forbes has a handy list for banks [1], that were usually nationalized, cleared up and the remains sold off. There was an article detailing the practice here on HN a year or so ago, but I can't find it at the moment - it was around the time of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse I think.
Additionally, after 2001 airlines were bailed out, and in the wake of 2008ff car makers and more banks [2].
[1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/list-of-failed-banks/
[2] https://thenextsystem.org/history-of-nationalization-in-the-...
I wonder if we’ll see Boeing split and keep its more successful Defense business “closer to the vest” and spin out the commercial airplane business?
Wonder if this is problem.
Current QA/SOP's are onerous and very expensive to follow. But are based on having someone 'monitor' and 'check' everything. So two people, someone doing the work, and someone checking the work.
But seems like the old Boeing culture, was each employee cared about quality, so would check themselves. So needed less QA people, because everyone would 'do the right thing'.
So now that the culture is broken. Enforcing current QA/SOP's with additional QA people is un-profitable.
Unfortunately no.
He now adopted the "admit the problem and fix it" attitude because he was "caught", before that was business as usual for Boeing. It was/is more a "don't ask, don't tell", dump the risk on other separate entities/companies and cross your fingers because we need to get those planes out of the assembly line as fast and cheaply as possible no matter what.
Boeing is and has been under pressure, but it's their own fault. They have been fucking around for DECADES now and when there were "difficulties" they always called the US government to "facilitate" sales or their buddies inside the regulatory bodies to put the green check on their garbage.
Nothing about this is news, it has been known for years and years.
Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around..
>Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around.
And because once airlines have their fleets locked into a specific airplane brand, swapping it for the competition is almost impossible without crazy expense, so they coasted on this vendor lock in for decades knowing their existing customers have no choice but to keep buying their planes.
And also probably because "nobody ever got fired for buying Boeing".
That doesn't sound likely. They can wait for existing planes to age out and then buy a competitor's planes. For many reasons including fuel efficiency, when an airline retires a plane they are not going to replace it with the exact same plane. So some levels of pilot retraining is expected.
Type certification is a thing that exists, and the whole reason the 737 max is designed in this particular wonky way is so that it can grandfather into the type certification from the existing 737 family.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate
Having to mix and match pilots across the fleet is less efficient, what if you have a 737 pilot but the only aircraft available is an airbus? So, many airlines (eg southwest) will indeed only use one type, or only a handful of types. This also extends to things like parts availability etc.
The economics for switching away work exactly the same now as they did a decade ago when orders were placed: there is a very real cost to operating a mixed fleet and Boeing gets to extract a lot of that value themselves.
And yet many airlines fly a very high amount of planes of many types, of multiple brands. Southwest is a consumer darling and punches above its weight but it is an outlier.
Well, Southwest was a successful well-run regional carrier that grew as large as the big mega-airlines, while trying to keep running the business the same way.
There are still 20 smaller regional airlines in the U.S. and hundreds around the world. The vast majority of those fly just one or two types of planes.
That's simply untrue. Most airlines use 2, 3 types of planes at most. I'm not referring to the niche 5 percent of plane types but the overwhelming majority.
Type certificates for commercial airliners should expire after 30 years. After that date, allow any existing aircraft to continue operating but don't allow manufacturing of any new ones. The manufacturer should have to recertify and prove that the design fully complies with all current rules.
The original Boeing 737 design only took 4 years so that would give them plenty of time to work through any necessary design changes. And if pilots need to obtain a new type rating then so be it.
The A320neo family has a backlog of over 7000 orders. As much as Airbus is ramping up production in the past few years, with their current ~600 goal for 2024 that’s still a 12 year wait if you order one today.
And that only gets you so far because Spirit Aerosystems supplies major components for Airbus as well (including A320neo): https://www.spiritaero.com/company/programs/
I mean the whole reason for the 737 max was to avoid re training
Boeing’s customers have no choice. There is only one other option in town, and Airbus is at capacity for quite a few more years. The only threat Boeing has is governments fining them. So as long as governments (or the US government) let Boeing continue to function, there should be sufficient time to fix culture.
Shareholders might have an opinion though, and Ryanair buying MAX's at a discount when nobody else wanted them might not make them happy.
I mean, to be fair this plays right into Ryanair's strategy. Want a door plug? Pay extra.
No, want a door plug? Pay less (as you would be paying by risking your life).
Yea they could play it both ways, before and after the plug leaves the plane...
They could still charge extra depending on your pro/con door plug attitude with rationale matching your beliefs as to why they’re charging more.
I thought I read they were planning to cut back on quality control staff this year. Was that true? Did it change?
Interesting, source?
I'm not sure about this year, but here is an article from 2020 between the MAX crashes about that very thing. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
Ed Pierson, a Boeing whistleblower on quality, has also commented on similar efforts by the company a couple of months later. https://www.edpierson.com/removal-of-quality-control-inspect...
Muilenburg was an engineer who worked his way up to CEO at Boeing. He totally mishandled the 737 Max crisis.
Meanwhile, Airbus had an engineer CEO who nearly bankrupted the firm with the A380 project.
I think trying to put management into buckets doesn't work very well. Some engineer CEOs have bad product sense and some sales CEOs have great product sense. I mean, Steve Jobs for crying out loud.
Couple other modern examples are AMD and Nvidia leaders.
What can those customers do?
The airlines that have lots of 787 max have a vested interest in being able to use them.
The whole max mcas debacle happened because of the high cost of pilot re-certification. So what are they going to do, re-certify all their boeing pilots to fly airbus?
Airbus won't even have the capacity to take over all of boeing's market share. And the US can't let that happen anyway from a strategic point of view.
It's not like customers picking a brand of detergent on a shelf.
They cannot drop the aircraft. They simply have to keep using them. The only option is lawyers. The airlines could demand compensation from Boeing for any time/effort put into rectifying unreasonable issues with recently-delivered Boeing aircraft.
I don't get that impression at all. He only went on a PR fest the day after boeing stock tanked (which was after the weekend the door plug flew off). He was actively trying to get faa exceptions to other max's to get them in the air prior.
I’m sorry, but too little, too late. It’s time for a new executive team incl CEO.
They breached the trust of their customers. I want to see new leadership, not someone who suddenly turns a new leaf.
Did the CEO change last month or are you talking about the same one fully into covering everything up just until now?
I have the exact opposite impression. I don't know why the board hasn't fired him yet. He was brought in to change the company culture. It's been 4 years and this happen. 4 years is a long time, and this failure shows that he failed at what he was hired for (no, making money is not his main job.)
Of course he is going to say whatever is needed to save his job, but in my eyes Boeing should move on and choose someone else. Time is running out.
If this is what is happening, then that is encouraging.
Anytime a corporation had 'culture of silence'.
Then turns it around to be 'speak up'.
There is a backlog of issues that comes out before the situation improves.