Hacker News Reader

Comment by jussij | Hacker News Reader

The FAA suffered a major loss of credibility in their handling of the first round of testing/accreditation of the MAX.

The FAA can't afford another stuff up this second time around and as such I suspect they will be checking every aspect of the plane in very fine detail.

That could spell more trouble for Boeing.

View on HN

I still don't trust the FAA at all. They've been sourcing out their own work to Boeing since the 787 Dreamliner [0]. That's seven years ago. I don't think this will make them change their practices. The 787 fiasco certainly didn't.

Personally I'd be happiest if the world just scrapped all the Max-es. Just scrap 'em, let Boeing go out of business, it's what they deserve now, they shouldn't exist anymore as a company. There are enough businesses that happily create planes without putting profit before people.

It's really too bad that there's no footage of either of the crashes, because if people could see what happened they would never fly one of those things again. That's why people don't fly zeppelins anymore. Not because of what people said or read, but because they saw. The Max deserves the same.

Do you want to fly in a plane which was created using the deaths of over 300 people to finalize the design?

[0] The Boeing 787: Broken Dreams, Al Jazeera Investigations, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

It's not footage but that angle of attack is absolutely nuts. I don't think my brain would have been able to process that kind of image out my window if I was a passenger on that plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIunpQQpzs0

I think you mean angle of descent. Angle of attack is the angle of airflow with respect to the wing.

Not to mention the AoA data was suspect, at least from one of the sensors. That's what caused the chain of errors leading to the MCAS nosediving the plane.

It's especially important, while seeing that sequence starting around 5:20, both the crazy scary angle and the speed of it, to remember the way people defended Boeing and said the pilots could have dealt with it using arguments along the lines of "if they took a step back and though rationally" or "if they read the full procedure manual they have access to" or "if they connected the dots and realized it was similar to other system X".

Those people, pilots included, were thrown to the grounds.

Thanks. That's genuinely scary.

>because if people could see what happened they would never fly one of those things again.

They might not anyway.

As it is, people are irrationally afraid of flying. Plane crashes are a fetishized "nightmare scenario". Multiple crashes linked to the same plane (or company) will, likely, have terrible business consequences.

Well we can hope, can't we? As long as no exec at all is going to go to jail for this, I say let Boeing die. It's the least we can still do for those 300+ victims and their families.

« Let them die, or at least never use them for passenger travel anymore » is what they said for McDonnell Douglas (DC-9, DC-10 and MD-11 must represent half of Air Crash Investigation episodes), the company lost a lot of value.

So Boeing bought it.

> There are enough businesses that happily create planes without putting profit before people.

Are there? Besides Boeing and Airbus, which other company makes safe (or not, in case of Boeing) passenger planes? AFAIK it's a duopoly.

Embraer and Bombardier, possibly Sukhoi and Comac. But they don't make large, long range ones.

Does Sukhoi have a better safety record than Boeing?

Maybe there will be others that are happy to give it a go. Maybe it's best to have a monopoly, and forever get rid of rushing planes to market to beat the competition. Maybe in aviation, that would be a good thing, who knows.

> I still don't trust the FAA at all. They've been sourcing out their own work to Boeing since the 787 Dreamliner

I don't think the main issue is outsourcing the engineering work out.

The bigger thing is they were outsourcing their management and reporting to Boeing as well. That meant rather than independent overview, Boeing managers were able to pressure shortcuts and cost cutting and could threaten engineers jobs who didn't toe the line.

The biggest problem is not Boeing sourcing out its work, it's the FAA sourcing out its design certification work to Boeing. Boeing now designs the planes, and certifies them for safe design. That's what's nuts. In the documentary I posted above that problem was already identified, and that was seven years ago. Nothing has changed, Boeing still certifies its own planes and the FAA just signs off on them.

I think overall we should consider this process a very positive thing, FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future. It's unfortunate that it took two tragedies to get us here but if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time.

The reason people are outraged is that "don't use a single sensor to decide that the plane should perform an uncontrollable nose-dive" isn't the outcome of new learning. That wasn't competent airworthiness seventy years ago. It's a lesson the industry thought it had already internalized. We shouldn't applaud mistakes of the distant part being repeated recklessly as some kind of improvement.

What seems to have happened is that the system was originally designed with more conservative parameters. Testing showed that these parameters were insufficient to prevent a stall so they "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design.

It wasn't that it wasn't sufficient.

It was that they found similar behavior happening in a low-speed part of the flight envelope. That required increasing the authority and losing the G-load safeguard.

> "turned it up to 11", and didn't re-evaluate the original design.

In other words they thru all engineers principals out the window.

Now there is no doubt this is exactly what happened.

But the bigger question is why did this happen and why was it allowed to happen?

What amazes me about this whole sorry saga is what appears to be blatant deception on the part of Boeing.

Boeing somehow tricked the FAA into believing, from the pilots perspective the 737-MAX and 737 were the exact same plane.

That allowed the plane to enter service quickly as it meant the pilots would not require any flight simulator retraining.

What we now know is the 737-MAX is nothing like the 737 and the level of deception that seems to have occurred is concerning.

I don't think they "tricked [them] into believing". More like "talked them into accepting".

More like deceived: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattletimes.com/business/b...

Whether it was intentional to meet the schedule or accidental, we may never know.

The only difference between these two descriptions is whether the FAA implicitly understood that the MAX is NOT the same as the 737. If yes, then they were talked into accepting it anyway. If no, then they were tricked (unless Boeing genuinely believed that there was no difference, which is clearly false.)

The kind of people who work at the FAA jobs where those decision are made know enough about planes to realize that a different engine placement is not without effect. That alone means they should at least have done extensive testing internally, which they didn't since it was pretty much clear they used the older 737 simulators / didn't have 737 MAX simulators.

This is a very common phenomena that as Quality Assurance you specifically have to work around when talking to regulators, and there are in fact, white collar cultural norms in place which shape the way most corporations I've worked at talk about potential regulatory risks.

For one thing, if you bring up any questions regarding an issue at all, the preferred medium of communicating it until a decision is made tends to be direct person to person with no electronic paper trail. (This insulates the company from getting caught out by E-Discovery in case of legal troubles).

Secondly, there's the practice I call anchoring. This is where you go to the regulator with a very narrow, refined question looking for an answer, explain why you think it's a good idea, and hope they don't think too much into it before saying yes you can do it. If it works, you have a document stating the regulator told you it was okay when you asked. To prevent this, you have to go to your regulator and give them a high and wide view.

A) What is the problem B) What are the relevant regulations impacted C) What additional risks are created with both answers

Businesses can be a bit squirmy when engineering folks start getting too chummy with compliance. I know I've found a good one when I don't get funny looks when asking if something questionable sounding has been run passed Compliance.

Everything I've read in this investigation reeks of anchoring toward the FAA. Especially given the whistleblower testimony as reported in the 60 Minutes Expose on the MAX.

[1]https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DaO7_indbfME&ved=2ahUKEwje2...

I wouldn't say the 737 MAX is nothing like the 737 NG, they're quite a lot alike in important ways, but there are clearly significant differences. And there should be an aggressively adversarial system to determine whether the difference is significant enough to warrant a separate type certification for the MAX variant.

I'm not at all amazed by Boeing's blatant deception and blame shifting. They've done this before, and with this same model of aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues

This isn't some previously undiscovered issue in aviation. This is plain and simple Boeing prioritizing cost savings over human lives. It is as simple as that. There are no technical takeaways to be had from the two tragedies that took place. The only takeaway is that Boeing betrayed everyone but their pockets.

short term thinking vs long term consequences...

I would prefer that Boeing be put out of business, rather than "learning a lot from this process". I think that the word "unfortunate" is too conservative to cover this situation.

A corporation is not a person and punishment isn't always the answer, but we are looking at a lot of deaths and this new issue sounds like it could have caused even more. If the FAA had missed this one we could have been looking at another crash. Maybe putting Boeing out of business would serve as a cautionary tale to the remaining companies in this space that they should be making more conservative choices when it comes to development of a product that has the potential to injure or kill such a large number of people.

As it is, I'm not sure what the moral of this story is for Boeing. Is it that the company is "too big to fail"? It is that they need to tough out the bad press to really be successful?

I worry that maybe it's something along the lines of "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette."

Boeing is never going to be "put out of business." They are too important to the US economy and US national defense for that to ever happen.

What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law.

> What could happen (but still unlikely) is that those within the company who made the decisions that led to the deaths of 300 people could be held to account in a court of law.

Sorry, I laughed. That will never happen. Boeing may go under, but those rich bastards will always be able to stay out of jail. Name me one exec of a plane manufacturing company that has gone to jail over a crash. There aren't any.

> FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future

Yeah, right. Until they start cutting corners again for economic reasons. There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations, it's all a dog and pony show driven by money and saving their asses.

"if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time"

And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years. Until people start demanding that at least the goal of those organizations should be Total and Complete Flight Safety, the FAA and Boeing will cut corners because "accidents will always happen, this isn't the first and it won't be the last, so who cares". Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen.

>There's absolutely no change in any of those organizations driven by this incident or by an increase in standards or by safety, there are no new regulations

How fast do you think this stuff can happen?

>And that's a great argument for just letting the next horrible accident happen in a few years.

The next horrible accident is going to happen in a few years, sorry to tell you.

>Accidents will stay a calculated risk for them, in stead of something that just should never ever happen.

I'm going to assume you're no engineer.

>I'm going to assume you're no engineer.

I'm pretty sure what you're trying to get across is that Engineering is the business of enabling the taking of calculated risks, but you're doing it in a needlessly inflammatory way.

And the poster you're responding to isn't necessarily wrong either. Just because engineering allows us to identify, analyze, and calculate the impact of risks does not free us of an obligation to always favor the most conservative approach in living up to the obligation to comport ourselves in a manner consistent with serving the Public interest.

Remember the Iron Ring in all things.

> How fast do you think this stuff can happen?

Above I posted a seven year old documentary about the 787 Dreamliner, and there were the same problems of Boeing doing the FAA's work. So to answer your question: I don't really know, but it seems to be decades at least before anything changes, if at all. And that's really appalling.

>I'm going to assume you're no engineer.

I am, actually.

As an engineer you can calculate a risk like: this part under this type of load will fail at x, and then design so that x is never reached (or in a million years or so) to make a design safe.

A manager can calculate risk like: if we sell 5k planes, and we can make them $1000 cheaper by using a part that will increase the likelihood of a crash by only 2%, since the chance of a crash is already very very low, we might as well use the inferior part and make $5m extra. That way I can buy that third mansion I want.

Both are calculating risk. The engineer calculates for safety, the manager for his stock options. Which do you think is better?

My point is, the goal should always be complete safety. Even though engineers know that that is impossible, and even though lots of managers don't care at all about safety. We should still strive for it. Total flight safety should be the goal, not a byproduct of good engineering.

That's why we have the FAA in the first place, because we don't trust those managers at Boeing to make the right decisions, because experience learned us we shouldn't.

We trusted on the FAA and Boeing to hold that goal of passenger safety to the highest standards, but they betrayed that trust completely by letting Boeing do the FAA's work! Isn't that completely bonkers? Perhaps we just should scrap the FAA as well and let the Europeans certify all planes. I don't know. But right now there's nothing but ass-saving going on, and that doesn't restore trust in either of those organizations.

Lot's of people should be going to jail for this, but they wont, because they're rich and can buy their way out. Everybody knows this. That's the way the United States works. Justice is only for the rich and powerful. That's how Boeing can kill 300+ people and get away with it. As an engineer, this worries me greatly.

I wonder what would be unearthed should they also choose to look at Boeing's other planes in such similar scrutiny.

Me too. I know the 787 is choke full of design and construction errors as well, but am curious about the others. We'll have to wait on any model to start falling out of the sky regularly to get an answer though. Because as long as it doesn't fail they're sure as hell not going to check. That's how you design planes at Boeing see? You half ass a plane, and then let the public beta test it.

Is this why third world state airlines seem to be first in line to test the new models (Ethiopia etc). They get an extra good deal on them. Makes me sick really, that this is the world we are in.

Asking because I legitimately don't know: was the FAA failure here more attributable to the agency, or the funding (and therefore manpower*expertise) available to it?

Many articles about the 737 Max crashes have been talking about how it’s largely a systemic failure of the process due to the US culture of deregulation. That would make this both attributable to the agency and to the funding in a way that is complex and hard to separate. As I understand it, the agency has been allowing airplane manufacturers to essentially do their own testing more and more over time, despite the obvious conflict of interest.

Came here with the same thought. It's not just the culture at Boeing. We see this everyday in US on different levels of administration. This country is simply owned by corporations and while deregulation was great for the progress which built it, it's not ok anymore.

If you work in a place where there is not enough funding for your job to do it safely and people may day, you need to walk away.

I think that attitude is part of the problem. If you're competent, it's usually much easier to find a new job than it is to take on entrenched cultural and funding problems that create risks. This further entrenches the problems by driving out dissenters, and if you work for a regulator, the 'creative destruction' of the free market can't fix it either.

While all true, by quitting you escalate the problem.

If upper layers "solve" it by hiring less competent people, then that is something on their conscience.

When the problem is at the top, just bearing with it at the bottom will not help at all. Even if you manage to save lives, you virtually sacrifice your own.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The FAA suffered a major loss of credibility in their handling of the first round of testing/accreditation of the MAX. The FAA can't afford another stuff up this second time...

Because I'll just check with the next air transit regulatory body right?

Like the European Aviation Safety Agency?

So the FAA says "this is fucked" and and the EASA says "they're all good bro"[1], who do you side with?

[1] feel free to flip flop regulatory agencies if you so desire.

The fact that they disagree is what is notable. The FAA lost credibility by being the last to ground the MAX. You side with the one that has a history of not being wrong.

>You side with the one that has a history of not being wrong.

A question for the arm-chair analysts in this thread: which one has a better history of not being wrong, excluding this data point?

I don't know the history, but considering the incentives, I'd look first to EASA for Boeing, and first to FAA for Airbus.

It is like with two AoA sensors: if they disagree, there is the problem.

Too soon...

You side with the most conservative obviously. Your life is at stake. Only when there is a total consensus of safety you can feel confident.

Depends on where you want to fly.

The FAA and EASA have an agreement of trust regarding type certificates issued by the other party[0] (i.e., if the FAA certifies an aircraft, EASA will allow that aircraft to fly in Europe without performing its own technical certification process).

This agreement only works as long as both parties trust each other's certification process.

0: https://www.easa.europa.eu/document-library/bilateral-agreem...

That makes me doubt the severity of this issue slightly. Maybe the FAA is pointing out a relatively minor issue to rebuild trust, and Boeing isn't in the position to disagree, or even say it's minor, so they're acquiescing.

> they will be checking every aspect of the plane in very fine detail.

But is that really what is going on here? Are they equipped to do so any longer?

They don't even have the manpower for that. So that's the PR dept probably.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if this was an issue somebody knew about but with the recent attention they're forced to disclose it before somebody else discovers it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com