Boeing employees mocked FAA in internal messages before 737 Max disasters

Sure, but without additional context we can’t know what they were talking about, or whether those remarks were relevant to the final product.

Read the whole sentence. Boeing does have a proven track record of serious failures, negligence, coverups... If you were inclined to speculate, you could speculate that this comment is in reference to some sort of serious issue that eventually made it into the production model. However the article doesn’t substantiate that implication (and it is only an implication).

The author of the article clearly wants you to come away from reading it with a diminished impression of Boeing. They have a clear profit incentive to make the article as outrageous as possible. A lot of people (myself included) already have a pretty poor opinion of Boeing, and I’d bet a lot of people who clicked on the article would be inclined to believe any negative claims made against them. The dangers of Fake News are often discussed on HN, and this is exactly the sort of situation where it is most important to exercise critical thinking.

That quote, without context, doesn’t reveal any meaningful information at all. I presume I’m getting downvoted because people think I’m defending Boeing, which I haven’t done once. I’m simply pointing out the danger of getting sucked in by outrage journalism, especially when it plays into your preconceived notions (no matter how well founded they are).

1: I will fly with you.

2: I will fly with you without even wearing shoes. (Realistically, I can't imagine why shoes would make a difference.)

3: I would let my family fly with you.

If you say you wouldn't put your family in a Max, then your trust in the Max is not at level 3. Logically, this is a very weak constraint; it only shows that trust < 3. Maybe trust is 2. That's what fingerlocks is saying.

However, vernacular language generally doesn't work that way. A common mode might come from the following train of thought:

- I don't trust this plane.

- How much do I not trust it? The MAXIMUM LEVEL, LEVEL 3!

- "I would not let my family fly on this plane."

Here, from a logical perspective, the person has confused "lack of level 3 trust" with "level 3 distrust". This is bad in a math class (the scope of the negation is wrong -- [not [level 3 trust]] vs [level 3 [not trust]]), but routine in ordinary speech.

So is almost everybody else. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority#Driving_a...

driving isn’t unsafe because of your own (self-assessed) skill, it’s unsafe because of that other 50%.

no matter how safe of a driver you are, you should be worried.

So, just to be safe, don't ever sleep...

I mean, it's pretty common for people to have a heart attack from sudden exertion, too. Like snow shoveling.

And I remember Douglas Adams died after a workout and he was probably reasonably fit at the time (in theory anyway).

So don't exercise.

The sad thing is this could be seen as a successful (in the Pyrrhic sense) business move by Boeing in that they were given an impossible goal, secured sufficient sales to airlines, and show all indications of being on the road to getting away with it if there are still sufficient people out there who are still willing to fly on one afterward.

Just gotta be willing to crack a few eggs, and cash in on that goodwill on occasion, yet the business churns on regardless.

It's a bit sickening to be honest. To be faced with what we're finding, and to show all indications of just moving on with business as usual.

It makes it hard to take anything seriously anymore. Cripes, I used to hang aerospace over my teams as a "you could be in a situation where I'd reject this work wholesale because you haven't convinced me you've thought it through, and I don't feel like killing people down the road."

Now the tables have turned... Even there, in what I thought was the last bastion of "it absolutely must be provably right", it seems that wasn't ever the case, or if it was, the rot has set in so badly as to leave it unrecognizable.

Leaves me feeling like a Diogenes, searching desperately for someone who isn't cutting irresponsible corners, and is dedicated to not just achieving the mission, but caring about how they do it.

Sorry, bit of a tangent there... But jeez. I figured it'd be bad. Not this bad though.

2. The commercial airlines figure which you've used is not from using the particular method of transportation, 737 max, which the use of you are justifying with the comparison.

3. If you wear a helmet, don't ride drunk, don't speed and otherwise follow traffic rules it will make riding a motorcycle a lot safer than average.

For Boeing you have multiple lines (not only the 737 MAX but the 777 too) going as far as handing over bribes to the FAA, with upper management investing the budget savings on some yacht time.

Now for the past 5 years (I'm 38 now) my life is about trying to find places with clean enough air, which is much harder and more expensive in winter time.

I'm always looking at experiments that reverse methylation damage, and hoping that those experiments succeed before I get cancer, but there's only 1 successful experiment so far, and I have no idea if it would help me.

IMO Boeing should be required to separate the military and civilian parts of the company and allow the military side to build civilian aircraft based on existing civilian models. I honestly think it's the only way to save the company, because right now airlines, regulators, pilots and passengers do not trust the current incarnation of Boeing. With their shady culture, we don't know what else is hiding in the airplane. Culture issues aren't solved overnight.

I fly a lot of miles and am the type of person who keeps the airlines in business, and I will not fly on a 737 MAX for the foreseeable future. My coworkers are in the same boat. I don't see the American carriers being able to return these planes to service before 2022. This is absolutely an existential threat to the US aviation industry, and I think the only solution is to split Boeing up.

My understanding is that it was never limited to one command.

Instead, all their failure analysis was based on the assumption the pilot would correctly identify the problem immediately after the first activation and follow the runaway stabilizer checklist (disabling all electric trim) before the second activation could occur.

If people were joking around and using hyperbole to exaggerate the extent of what they saw as problems, and did this often-- as some engineering cultures do-- a slap on the wrist is justified. That kind of banter creates noise that obscures real concerns about lack of safety.

If they were genuinely concerned and are smacked for creating documentation of it, that is super bad.

This is more or less my point. If your employer was happy with it, then your employer was the kind of employer attempting to build a transparent organization (and worked to build emotional security etc.). If your employer wasn't happy with it, then you and your employer have different opinions on the importance of transparency, which points to a cultural mismatch, which points in the direction of parting ways.

The key insight is understanding that it's the employer, not the employee, who have both the responsibility and the power to set culture and direction. So if the employer decides not to work on building transparency into the culture, the employer will get an opaque culture as a result. Maybe this results in the kind of problems that Boeing is suffering from now, maybe it results in bankruptcy, maybe not. The employer is responsible and accountable to decide. The employee's decision is much simpler - adapt or leave. Most people decide to adapt; the potential upside to leaving is a murky gamble taken on faith, particularly if people don't have a specific offer lined up at a specific place that seems to be a better fit for specific reasons. So it shouldn't be a surprise to you that employers get what they (intentionally or unintentionally) incentivize.

Fixed that for you...