Hacker News Reader

Comment by usr1106 | Hacker News Reader

There is at least one big airline that denies to accept airliners built in Charleston. Don't remember which. So quality problems are not invented by a single disgruntled employee. There have been news articles before https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... says that Qatar Airways "stopped" accepting planes fron Charleston. Not sure whether that means indefinitely or until the planes in question are reworked.

In normal markets competition would make sure that a company like Boeing gets enough pressure or eventually fails. Now they are too big to fail however they misbehave. And there is little doubt that they do badly. The merger with McDowell Douglas should never have been approved, even less the newest acqusitation of Embraer. Case AT&T showed what to do if competition does no longer work.

View on HN

The Air Force halted deliveries of planes from Boeing due to parts and debris found in closed compartments: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-a...

Al Jazeera has a long report on YouTube [0] covering the allegations around Charleston, I know that they can be biased against the US but this report is quite eye opening. Even more given the interview with a VP (or director, can't remember exactly the position) being cut short by the PR person involved, the reports from workers inside the factory stating they wouldn't fly a plane built there, etc.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

All Jazeera is garbage. If it's legitimate find a real source for it. I don't need the government of Qatar's propaganda and you shouldn't trust some of it because it co firms your biases. Treat bar actors as bad actors even if what they're saying this moment is something that interests you.

Al Jazeera is in general completely biased against Israel and YES, I MENTIONED that I have issues with a lot of their reporting.

At the same time watch the report and get your own conclusions before shooting it down based on YOUR biases and prejudices, that reporting is solid, it has video evidence from an employee walking inside the Charleston factory and chatting with co-workers regarding the safety of the planes and the assembly line.

So please, be more sensible about your sourcing, this is solid even though biased, just take it with a grain of salt and critical thinking about what parts you should consider and what to disconsider... It's a real source.

Also: be more civil, I expect better from Hacker News, your comment read like something out of Reddit.

One ends up with the most rounded view of the world by reviewing media with many different slants and biases and assuming the truth probably lies somewhere between all the biased news stories.

That is what I strive to do, I've lived too many years almost blindingly trusting what are considered good sources. Being critical and sourcing from different angles on the same issue has helped me a lot on the past 5-6 years to get a more nuanced worldview.

Everyone knows you will accept at least half a lie as mid ground, then. Nuanced and full of lies.

I've heard it said that journalism is never objective, and nor does it strive to be. However, responsible journalism is aware of its biases and reports in a manner that allows audiences to weigh the facts themselves.

That's pretty faulty logic - some biases don't have a middle ground to identify

What if it doesn't? What if there are 60 liars and 1 truth teller?

The assumption that everyone is telling the truth in a biased fashion is an incorrect assumption and leads to accepting lies from people who don't deserve your trust.

Judge the content not the source.

I don’t know if this is entirely correct for all circumstances. It’s possible that a source known for complete fabrication of facts may display a very unbiased looking content; it’s just that none of the content is real. Like The Onion. It’s also important to note sources for their biases so you may be able to discern what facts are being intentionally left out of an otherwise comprehensive content.

Perhaps some mix of both is necessary?

I agree; a mix of both is necessary.

I remember in particular a piece Malcolm Gladwell wrote on football and head injuries. ( https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play )

I am willing to believe that football causes head injuries for other reasons. I am generally against this. So I let a few people know about the piece. I'd also give them a warning: Malcolm Gladwell generally doesn't know what he's talking about, and it's a bad idea to pay attention to what he says. That said, this is an interesting piece by Malcolm Gladwell.

I know this is the wrong thing to do. You can use Malcolm Gladwell's piece to make arguments against football because every argument is more persuasive when Malcolm Gladwell makes it. That's his only skill, but it is very highly developed. The problem is that that's a terrible reason to believe an argument. The Malcolm-Gladwell-sounds-convincing argument can prove anything at all, as long as Malcolm Gladwell wants it to. The correct thing to do as the person being argued at is to completely dismiss whatever he says, because it will sound convincing regardless of whether it's true.

We live in a strange world if reputation now means nothing. The whole point of judging by the source's reputation is that the content itself simply can't carry all the information necessary for it to be judged in isolation.

After years of sinking quality, newspapers downsizing, and what passes for "modern" journalism, there are few reputable sources left.

We have to make do with what we've got, which is easy access to original sources and independently verifiable information thanks to the internet and electronics.

Newspapers nowadays are great pointers for topics to look into independently, but one piece of bad information is damaging enough to offset a hundred accurate facts. So considering the quality of modern journalism, it's better to just focus on the source material and ignore what the middle man has to say.

There is still people I trust to provide accurate information, because I trust in both their integrity and expertise in their fields, but there is certainly no news organization that I trust to that degree as a whole.

> it's better to just focus on the source material and ignore what the middle man has to say.

When you can go to the primary source, by all means, be my guest and go for it. Nobody's arguing against that. The trouble is you're not going to get very far with this approach unless you somehow have independent access to all the primary sources and also the time and resources to sift through them. If you do -- fantastic. If you're like the vast majority of people, though, this is frequently not the case for you. And whenever it's not, ignoring every middleman altogether is the equivalent of putting your head in the sand and declaring everyone is wrong.

Hmm, seeing the documentary, what would you do if you're working in Alenia? Do you deliver the parts anyway and hope FAA? Do you stop production and lose the contract?

From a Supplier perspective it's an interesting discussion.

I heard the same thing about Charleston from a European airliner that is buying boeings.

The project managers wished their airplane wouldn't be assembled there, because that causes a whole bunch of extra problems.

There were plenty of rumours going around of what was happening at that plant. The quality difference was definitely there, and I'm surprised not more airlines requested that. Maybe they did bit it was behind closed doors.

It would appear QANTAS doesn't have any ex-Charleston 787s either. Couldn't say whether it's intentional.

You might not be aware of it, but Boeing moved production to Charleston to break the unions here in WA state. Just like they moved corporate HQ to Illinois to dodge taxes. These myopic greedy decisions are finally backfiring on them, and they richly deserve it.

It's possible to find out whether a 787 was made in Everett or Charleston by checking the production site and remarks on planespotters.net

e.g. https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/Boeing/787/G-ZBJM-Bri... vs. https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/Boeing/787/9V-SCF-Sin...

I would imagine that now that people hate Boeing management for risking their life it's much easier for other airplane startups to raise VC money and be succesful.

I’m not sure I trust a startup to make life safety equipment either. Startups by definition have to do whatever they can to cut costs and get as minimal of a minimally viable product as they can, and often, that leads them to releasing shitty versions of the product and patching it later. That’s fine when it’s a mobile game, but when it’s airplanes that carry hundreds of people across the ocean...

I’m not sure I have a solution here, other than saying something like “just fix Boeing” but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money.

The minimum viable product for a passenger plane startup is a newly FAA certified one, which is already a higher quality standard than how Boeing 737 MAX plane was certified.

Also I bet that the EU certification won't be easy in the next 10 years.

At the same time the number of whistleblowers increasing is great for keeping Boeing in check.

> but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money.

I’m not sure if the incentives or expected results really change all that much. Certainly there are plenty of large wealthy governments and large corporations that don’t have a great track record with safety in large engineering/manufacturing endeavors.

maybe we don't need someone who never built a plane, as much as allow some of those that already do to scale up?

Bombardier, COMAC/UAC, Mitsubishi, or some of those that make very small planes like Textron etc.

The problem seems to me that aircraft companies are treated as national assets, and no country wants to allow, and obviously not encourage, challengers to their champion.

Move fast and break things. What could possibly go wrong.

Yes, there are lots of short haul small electric airliner startups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com