FAA overruled engineers, let Boeing Max keep flying
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Since the company merged with its competitor they had a complete management shift which incentivizes many of the failures we've seen recently.
Al Jazeera did an investigation into them in 2014; you should be able to find it available online somewhere. It was damning and surprisingly well researched.
Mind you this was well before they changed the system regarding the nose pointing down; without disclosing it to the pilots.
They are just going business as usual. I and many I know well would never willingly fly in one of their planes.
Unfortunately the article is unclear: was the overruling by appointees or civil servants? This distinction is crucial for any repair to the system.
There is unfortunately a serious and destructive plan from one of the political parties to abandon the Pendleton act and return to the spoils system. If that happens we will see a lot more of this happening.
The “safe” recommendation is to ground all the planes of that model any time there is a suspected issue.
That said, the FAA has a long history of not implementing safety recommendations. NASA had this issue with the space shuttle.
The counterpoint is that their safety record speaks for itself. When was the last commercial airliner crash in the US? 2009?
If we count smaller craft like commercial single engine float planes, then the Puget Sound plane crash in 2022.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
If you mean domestic airline, then it was probably the 2009 Colgan Ait crash that led to major procedure and training g changes in the US.
The biggest one was requiring both pilots to have ATP certificates, effectively moving the bar to co-pilot from 250 hours to 1500 hours of flying. Lots of other changes that taken on their own are small, but overall it was a pretty massive set of changes.
It's not clear whether the 1500 hour rule directly improved safety. Both the Colgan captain and the FO had more than 1500 hours at the time of the accident. What the rule did unambiguously is severely restrict the supply of new pilots to regional airlines. This significantly improved quality of life for regional pilots, who prior to Colgan were effectively making minimum wage or worse. (That may have indirectly improved safety, by making pilots more well-rested and fed...)
Another point of comparison is Europe, which has a not-dissimilar safety record, but still allows FOs to have 250 hours. That said, from what I understand, they have a very different training culture where students start in a multi-crew environment very early.
> One engineer made a preliminary estimate that the chance of another Max crash was more than 13 times greater than FAA risk guidelines allow.
> However, this document was not completed and did not go through managerial review due to lack of detailed flight data
A plane crash is too significant for the FAA not to even disposition the analysis, meaning formally receiving, reviewing, and deciding what to do. Incomplete data would just be part of the decision process, it's not a legitimate excuse for not looking at it. Killing the report like this where no one is on record opposing it is a pretty common tactic to at least buy some time when you know what the result will be.
They were hoping to find a reason not to ground the plane. They didn't find one, so they eventually ground it.
The "safe" recommendation is to keep all planes in the sky regardless of suspected safety issues because alternative transportation is not safer than a dangerous airplane.
(Consider that I can fly from SF to LA in an hour and a half, but it's a 6-hour drive. If my flight was canceled and I couldn't find an alternative flight, I just wouldn't go at all. Certainly there are some extreme situations where I might bite the bullet and drive, but that'd be rare.)
Put another way: when we know something is unsafe, we shouldn't keep it going just because of the theoretical risk of alternatives. And yes, I know that the risk of driving isn't "theoretical", but we can't fully predict what humans will do absent their first choice of transportation.
If I have to fly for a one-day or two-day business meeting, and I can’t find a flight, I don’t go. Driving ensures I miss the meeting. Staying put, I can at least join virtually.
I only know a few people who fly willingly.
https://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
(Note this data is only up to 2019 for 737 models, but that's exactly the time period at which decisions had to be made, of whether to continue flying it or not).
There's absolutely no way it was a more dangerous form of travel than driving.
I am intimately familiar with both catastrophic failures of the 737 Max, which involved undertrained pilots from third world airlines.
As soon as the emulator got bad feedback from the one sensor that was used to map "max" airframe behavor to "737" controls, all bets were off. And because the pilots weren't allowed to know they were in a Max not a 737 (which would require further training that would void the advantages of the Max) there was no SOP for how to deal with "your Max is blind and can't pretend to be a 737"
The "poorly trained" pilots weren't test pilots -- pilots aren't supposed to be able to improvise and react to things off book.
Both pilots had multiple thousands of flight hours (well beyond the minimum 1500 required to co-pilot in the US). Only the co-pilot of the Ethiopian Air flight would have been deemed too new to fly for a US airline (and even then, only post-Colgan Air 3407).
1 - https://fortune.com/2020/01/14/boeing-lion-air-extra-737-max...
This possibility was mentioned in the AFM, but the recommended response - pitch nose-down to decrease the load - was not feasible in the situation.
There were, however, reasons to be skeptical. Firstly, unlike in most other cases, it was not designed to halt when opposed by the pilot’s use of the control yoke (to do so would defeat the purpose of MCAS.) Secondly, it was found in flight testing that MCAS needed to be made much more aggressive, yet the original decision was allowed to stand. Thirdly, it could stop on its own accord, only to start up again a few seconds later.
Consequently, while MCAS failure is nominally handled as a form of trim runaway, it did not present itself to pilots like the trim runaway scenarios they had trained for.
There may have been a path to saving the aircraft, but it definitely didn't seem at all intuitive. And figuring it out while the plane is actively trying to crash itself is a pretty big ask.
There was IIRC 8~16 hours of training that was intended to be mandated, but Boeing told airlines that training was not necessary. So many (not all) pilots never learned the deeper mechanisms of MCAS. This would reduce costs, and increase desirability of the aircraft.
But it gets even worse! The FAA approved Boeing's request to remove a description of MCAS from the aircraft manual! So no, most pilots wouldn't even be able to learn about it even if they wanted to!
There was 0 redundancy. The MCAS was directed by ONE SINGLE AoA (Angle of Attack) SENSOR! No backups!
Even worse! Boeing was aware of the problems as of 2016! They even knew MCAS violated Boeing's own design documents and rules for the max8!
And yet here you are blaming the pilots instead of the money grubbers at the top.
You're presumably taking the average deaths per miles and applying it in the sense of "those people would drive and that's more dangerous."
...that's....not how that works.
You assume:
* they would take alternate transportation, instead of canceling the trip or booking another flight not on a MAX. At the time there were just 387 MAX aircraft in the world in service.
* that said transportation would be passenger cars. Trains and busses are 10x (or more) safer than passenger cars per passenger mile. They're so safe that the danger to a passenger is basically insignificantly higher compared to commercial jet flights (and by the way, the industry very conveniently separates out "commuter" flights, which are FAR more dangerous.)
* that the overall safety of the commercial jet fleet is applicable to flights on a specific model of jet, which were clearly more dangerous, with not just two crashes in close proximity, but several close calls and almost certainly numerous other incidents that went unnoticed or unreported
This must be your position if you were to post this.
Doesn't sound like they changed their minds based on new data to me.
That approach has historically been the FAA strategy. Maybe they should stick to what works?
Especially given the airframe was so new and they also knew it had really stretched what should be allowable under the same type rating the caution was definitely warranted.
The better question still remains as to how it got to keep the type rating despite the huge changes in the flight handling characteristics without a software system that didn't need to be sold in a redundant configuration and additionally without any additional training being mandated for pilots in the case of that system malfunctioning.
Sure Boeing failed here but they are a company, companies especially of that size are absent of morals and driven only by profit.
The FAA is meant to be the backstop, the voice of reason that prevents rampant capitalism from accidentally destroying itself. Airline travel only is what it is because of perceived safety, it's best all the stakeholders start remembering that.
Was it a new airframe though? Not too sure that statement is correct...
Really? Because the Airbus A330 MRTT originally won the KC-X competition (before Boeing filed a challenge):
> The USAF issued the KC-X request for proposal in January 2007,[2] then selected the Northrop Grumman/EADS team and their Airbus A330 MRTT-based tankers in February 2008.[3]
> The Air Force selected Boeing's KC-46 bid on 24 February 2011.
PS. purchasers around the world seem to like Airbus' MRTT platforms a lot, they are probably better at the purely technical level.
BCA would, if things go on their current trajectory, get hoovered up by someone for cheap. Karma option would be Embraer.
In the event of a split, the nine million dollar question is how they handle their debt. Boeing took on a gargantuan debt load (for their sector, anyway), and that was before the MAX problems even hit - before COVID too, obviously. How Lockheed juggled their debt in the L3 selloff was a big part of how Lockheed survived into the 1990s, and it'll also be the theme of a Boeing breakup.
Or they’re giving themselves more of a margin for error so it’s easier to install guns.
Military sales are more politics than business. The French behave much like the US, they'll buy foreign kit only as a very last resort. It is a strategic decision that a country has to make based on manufacturing capabilities, ability to generate orders (domestic and foreign) and the planned purpose for their military forces.
I don't follow aviation or Boeing actively, but in the last few years I seem to recall the max grounded for literally killing people, the 787 having tons of manufacturing issues,and something about the NASA contracts having a lawsuit from SpaceX.
Feels like we're seeing a company in crisis.
For decades it has been discussed the whole situation stinks and someday the consequences would start to materialize. They did with the MAX and I fear it’s just the beginning.
Ultimately I think EASA deserves a little bit more blame. You can somewhat understand the FAA having a bias towards their own national aircraft maker, but what the hell was EASA doing? They were supposed to be the check against that kind of nationalist bias, but they were just as deferential as the FAA.
After I was told I was just wondering what fool thought led someone to think installing it was a good idea.
It’s like using a cron job that restarts your server once a day to deal with memory issues.
Both cases are absurdly expensive and time consuming to the point that any new aircraft designs are basically experimental or dead on paper in terms of being able to sell the plane at a price people or even companies can actually pay.
In this case, my understanding is that, the new engines are a bit bigger which necessitated a change in mounting position relative to the main body in order to maintain ground clearance on takeoff and landing, this should have meant larger landing gear sitting a bit higher and/or a slightly different wing shape and mounting position on the body.
However, any of those kind of changes would have moved the Max8 into a new type certificate which would then require all pilots flying it to certify on that type in addition to additional flight testing and manufacturing certifications. All of that would move the cost of the plane well above the point where the efficiency gains would make it worth buying and delay production to the point where there would no longer be a market for it. So there would simply be no Max8.
And one could say, "well that's business, Airbus beat you to it, Boeing should lose then". And that would be fine as long as we're willing to accept a world where the US produces no commercial aircraft at all and airline ticket prices and accommodations continue to get even worse. Are we good with making travel by air something only the rich can afford?
So Boeing went with extending the engines forward and slightly upward which necessitated more down force from the horizontal stabilizers to balance the increased weight forward of the center of lift and introduced a potential disruption of airflow over the wings in a high pitch up situation.
Changing the size, shape, or position of the horizontal stabilizers or anything else that would address the airflow issues would also run into certification cost issues. Therefore Boeing settled on an active control solution which they integrated into the existing flight control software (poorly) and found creative ways to convince regulators that nothing much had changed in the software such that the whole design could be built at a price point and time to market that would actually make the project worth doing at all.
This kind of creative engineering of what you can get past the regulators is the dark side of any over-regulated industry and continues even in the re-certification process for the Max8 https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189609/faa-boeing-737-...
The reasons for it are pretty straight forward and can be seen as bad actors being bad or simply the result you are bound to get when you regulate without accounting for the reality of how people and businesses work. You can't just say "safety is our top priority" and continue to add layers of regulation until it's impossible to do anything without manipulating or bypassing those regulations. Doing so will counter-productively NOT get you safer designs.
What it will reliably get you is a shift in the focus of efforts from engineering the safest and most efficient aircraft possible to getting ever more creative about designing things you can get past the regulators. You don't want smart people dedicating large amounts of time, energy, and money to efforts to manipulate regulators.
We the public would be much better served by an FAA that regulates with safety as the top priority AND an eye for making it possible and profitable to actually introduce new designs and new ways to manufacture things.
Right now it is simply impossible to start a company with the goal of introducing a new aircraft or aircraft engine to the US market. It costs astronomical amounts to get to the point where you can sell your first plane and separately astronomical amounts to get to where you can sell your first engine. Even for single engine, fixed gear, small and light, GA planes.
This is why almost no normal US citizen can afford to fly personally, even just occasionally for fun. It is also why GA planes still use leaded gasoline and burn around 10 gallons per hour. It is also why "new" aircraft are all actually >95% similar to existing designs (even if that makes them inefficient), always use existing decades old engines, and still cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, making them priced out for all but the wealthiest potential customers.
The only possible route for any innovation in flight has been Experimental airworthiness certificates. And you can sell a few planes that way; but once you have a known good and tested design, you are still stuck in the Experimental category indefinitely because you will never sell enough planes to afford a standard category certificate.
Best of luck to the flying car startups but no pilot in the US expects them to have a snowball's chance in hell of making it to the point where they are profitably selling a genuinely new type of aircraft.
In EU you can get to a lot of destinations for much less than 100€. And I bet EU regulations are not less stringent than US. Adding insult to injury, Airbus does fine smashing Boeing in the mid-range mid-size planes segment.
Maybe the problem is not in the regulations, but in Boeing? Which tries to circumvent the regulations, instead of following them, or at least trying to appeal the regulations in a legal way?
Even renting the smallest of single-engine aircraft as a student pilot is beyond the resources of what most people would spend (hundreds of dollars per hour) "for fun". Owning an aircraft is out of reach for all but the very wealthy.
A small airplane is no more technically sophisticated than an automobile, yet costs orders of magnitude more.
It's not cheap, but it's not unfathomably expensive either. I would guess within reach for about half the US folk on here - based on the assumption that that population heavily skews to high-paying tech roles.
Which is also a problem because weather changes during flight. So if you actually want to travel with a plane you rented, you're going to need an instrument rating, which costs about as much as the initial license.
So you're out the price of a new mid-tier sedan, which you had to pay in cash upfront, and all you have to show for it is a card that says you can rent someone else's plane to go somewhere, AFTER they make you do a check ride with one of their local instructors anyway. You'll also then be renting the even more expensive IFR rated planes. And I hope you're doing this with aviation renter's insurance, which most places actually don't make you carry...but planes are expensive, remember? And you're borrowing one because you can't afford your own. And you're a low flight time pilot at this point, so enjoy those insurance premiums.
Software people are well paid enough to do all this, yes. So are lawyers and doctors. But that amounts to around 1% or less of the US population.
I’m inclined to believe that even if the engine components are the same, the whole control mechanism is an order of magnitude more complex than a car.
There are some factory tour videos on Rotax factory somewhere
Small Aircraft engines are actually some of the simplest designs you will ever find in a four or six cylinder engine. They are essentially pegged at 1950s to 1970s tech level.
The main difference you will notice first in the controls is that they all still require the operator to manually control fuel mixture. Cars used to be that way too.
But having a carburetor with a manually controlled fuel inlet valve opens the door to the operator getting it wrong and running the engine either too rich or too lean, which can lead to pre-detonation and/or build up of carbon deposits in the cylinders and on the spark plugs. Both of which throw off the engine timing, wear out engine components faster, and can lead to cracking the engine housing, breaking a piston rod, or plain old sudden loss of power during flight when the spark plugs stop working.
And that's on top of the possibility that the venturi can freeze up, starving the engine of fuel and air on decent, even on a hot day outside. Which means the pilot also has to learn to use "carb heat" which is an inefficient solution that sends hot exhaust gas back through the carburetor.
The controls are just two levers, nothing complicated, but the ways one can mess that up are varied. They are also subtle mistakes, right up until you are suddenly losing power at the worst time.
The answer in the car world has been to switch to fuel injectors with computer monitoring and control.
However, even introducing FADEC systems has been a struggle in aviation, LONG after they were well proven in ground vehicles.
As a result, operating just the engine in a small GA plane is harder and more error prone than operating a car engine and the aviation world responds to that increased risk by adding even more regulation around maintenance requirements and overhaul times. Which sounds perfectly rational but there is little data behind the regulations compared to what we could have if most engines were computer controlled and monitored. And we wouldn't need to be so paranoid on maintenance hours if we could rely on issues being noticed before they become problems.
Additionally, this makes flying with those more basic engines a bigger risk because the pilot then has to know the sounds, vibrational patterns, and general "feel" of that particular engine in order to have a good chance at detecting any issues that might lead to a loss of power. But as we humans are well aware from experience making car engines, this is not good enough, there are hundreds of little bits if information that can be indications of the beginnings of an eventual and costly failure that, if noticed early and remedied at the shop, results in continued and more reliable operation.
We start our cars every day and drive to work without really even thinking about the engines. The computers have our backs there. And the vast majority of the time, if anything, the computers are a bit TOO paranoid. But that's a good thing because it means problems get fixed before you end up broke down on the side of the road.
It is even more important that the engine not fail suddenly in flight because then you are forced to land wherever you can, even if that's a farmer's field or a highway. Very dangerous for the people in the plane and somewhat dangerous for people on the ground too.
One would think that the importance of detecting issues BEFORE takeoff and as early as possible during a flight, before the engine actually starts losing power, would make us want to use every tool at our disposal to operate, monitor, and maintain those engines as best as possible. But this is not the case, largely due to the way in which aircraft engine manufacturing and certification are regulated.
There's a lot of cheap destinations for domestic US flights, too. And the average length of a flight in the US is longer, obviously.
Not really. For US in 2018 it was ~700 miles (https://www.bts.dot.gov/newsroom/2018-traffic-data-us-airlin...), and for EU in 2020 it was ~1000 kilometers (https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/2021-04/euro...).
There are a lot of short flights (anything not coast-to-coast or north-to-south, basically) that skew the average.
700 miles is around 1127 kilometers... which I'm sure you knew and were just highlighting that US flights ain't that much longer than EU flights on average, but it's worth noting for clarity that they are indeed longer.
Boeing blamed the crashes on the lack of pilot training.
> “The crew’s inadequate actions … played a role in the chain of events that led to the accident, in particular during the first phase of the flight, before the first MCAS activation,” the BEA wrote. Both agencies suggest that Ethiopian Airlines *failed to ensure its pilots were adequately trained* in the measures that Boeing recommended to counter an erroneous MCAS activation after the first MAX crash.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/final...
https://www.faa.gov/foia/electronic_reading_room/boeing_read...
https://services.boeing.com/training-solutions/flight-traini...
"Pilot Error" is the most favored scapegoat in the aviation industry. It's always possible to say the problem occurred between "the keyboard and the floor", to use the analogous software catch phrase.
But that isn't good enough when the systems are supposed to be designed for trained humans to operation without making such errors. If operating the system is error prone, change the system.
In this case in particular, if the pilots were not trained well enough that was due to the fact that Boeing's initial training materials were inadequate.
I know that article wants to push the narrative that those pilots in particular were not good enough pilots to begin with, but that was not true before they flew the Max8. Flying the Max8 is what got them killed. Kinda weird that they had this supposedly inadequate skill set all along but it was only a deadly issue with the brand new plane. It may indeed be that Ethiopia needs to up their training discipline. And that's good to address. But it does nothing to absolve Boeing's part in those crashes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/boeings-ceo-on-why-737-max-p...
The FAA and Boeing have now established the new training requirements that should have been there from the start.
> "3. HIGHLIGHTS OF CHANGE The purpose of this revision is to add training requirements for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), Autopilot Flight Director System (AFDS) enhancements, and additional Special Emphasis Training. Appendices 2 and 3 reflect applicable table updates from the Boeing 737-800 to the Boeing 737-8 and from the Boeing 737-8 to the Boeing 737-800. Appendix 7 was added to delineate ground and flight training necessary to operate the 737 MAX modified with Flight Control Computer (FCC) software version P12.1.2."
Post incident Boeing is doing some double speaking for PR and CYA. But the investigation already proved out that they were dodging the training updates so they could get the plane to market sooner. And two things can be true at the same time as well. Accident investigations are meant to uncover ALL of the systemic and specific failures that led to the crash. And that's a really good thing.
But again, everything thing even Boeing is responsible for, was done to avoid costly extended certification requirements for the planes and time consuming re-certification of pilots.
If regulations are leading to this kind of behavior, it's not enough to even blame just Boeing. We need to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do. Maybe that's not possible here, but I don't really see anyone trying.
It’s not impossible.
Now of course what Boeing did to block Bombardier didn't help* and more or less sealed Bombardier's faith. But that was only because Bombardier at that point was basically on the verge of death and had only a few months left of runway (ha), which is crazy for a formerly massive and diversified player.
* and our government here in Canada is so weak (nothing specific to Trudeau here, the same could be said about Nortel or tons of other high tech that have been squandered in Canadian history ) that it didn't want to support bombardier more than it did.
What killed C-Series was Boeings shenanigans about 300% import duty. Abusing US laws for sure, but nothing to do with FAA killing it.
The plane was ready, so they had already done it. So whatever you say about not being impossible is directly contradicted.
Would Bombardier have made it with a more cooperative FAA? Maybe. Same question could also be asked about whether a different airline industry in the US would have helped. We don't know and never will.
In general tho, I am not arguing against the overarching point of your original comment, regulations tend to come in and it rarely happens that they are being refactored or cleaned up.
A lot of paper is being pushed around and rigidly enforced without looking at the big picture. The friction of complexity I guess.
But the specific claim, even though it sounds about right is not strictly correct.
300% import duty, was it? Free market for me but not for thee?
I do not accept this at all.
This would not result in "US producing no commercial aircraft". Boeing has a healthy and growing profit margin. They can afford to vertify a new plane properly.
You are asking me to risk my life to pad their margins.
it is exactly this king of preferential treatment to big players that ensures that there wont be competition.
The only way to rise is to have a full backing of a economkc superpower, basically Eu/US/China
That's not a healthy market and it is definitely suppressing advancement and discovery of new technology that we would all benefit from. What we should like to see is a market where safety is maximized AND it is possible to start a new aviation company with a reasonable chance of success.
The public is not well served by the current regulation environment. It looks like maximum safety concern, but we don't even get to know how safe and efficient flying could be if the tech was actually moving forward at a reasonable pace.
It took forever to even get winglets on most of the big aircraft. We knew about winglets in 1897.
They didn’t do it because of comercial reasons aka money in their pockets. Airlines were happy not having to do more training, they were happy, stock holders were happy, everyone was happy!
The regulations are so heavy and complicated that the best path to profit is to just capture and manipulate the regulators. Which only the biggest power players can do.
So there is effectively no competition allowed here. That doesn't serve the public well at all. We should like to see a market where many more new aircraft companies are popping up with new designs to prove out. Safety as a top concern, yes, but also a path to profit that doesn't have to involve cheating the system.
Yes, manipulating regulators does not create safety. If there are monetary fines and prison for those who approved the designs and testing, the corner-cutting would cease.
The 737MAX benefit was better fuel economy due to larger fans. Shortcuts were taken, and FAA and the flying public don't care to force a new type certification.
Is the report quoted in the article public?
The current head under Biden is Billy Nolen, a former pilot who flew the Boeing 757 and 767 and worked as an airline executive for years before joining the FAA [2].
By credentials, these two are definitely qualified.
1- https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/pr...
2- https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/30600-safety-professional...
My follow-up point was that experience in regulating airlines is more important than experience running an airline when it comes to leading the FAA. However, those who regulate airlines as a career are unlikely to be big political donors, so they're unlikely to be chosen to lead the FAA.
Career fed employees are always, lacking the real world knowledge to make sound decisions.
It implies that education isn't real and therefore of no value
When planes are not flying, people don't travel, so airlines don't make money, so they can't buy new planes, so manufacturers don't sell planes, so engineers don't get paid, so they leave, so they don't make better, safer planes.
It is a difficult balance to find, and sometimes the FAA gets it wrong, and sometimes people die. It is tragic when it happens, but if you want to be able to travel by plane, the industry has to keep going. Overall, the FAA has done a rather good job despite the conflicts of interest: accidents go down and air travel goes up. When they mess up, they usually take corrective action, as it was the case here.
Nominated to work in the govt ? Elected public official ? Great! Every penny beyond your average high income (best 5-10 income avg?) is taxed at 99% for life.
Working in the government should not be a way to enrich yourself and friends... or make a "career".
Its called public service for a reason. Its not private enterprise. Its not arbitrage. Its not patronage. Not to enrich yourself and your buddies.
Adding on a permanent pecuniary pay element for life is most likely to result in people finding various wheezes to get around that pay cap (I suspect in the form of undeclared gifts, not unlike the recent revelations of a certain Supreme Court justice). And it would tend to increase corruption, since now the incomes of these people are more heavily reliant on under-the-table payments from patrons who now need to be kept happy.
The engineer example doesn't follow. Its also not a pay cut.
Take for example 300k comp for your avg. eng 300k avg last 5 years avg comp. Goes to Gov. High cap is set at 300k. Gets a salary of 120k while with govt. He can leave govt, and go back to earn 300k. No problem.
He can even earn the gap between 120 and 300 also during his govt job. So he can maintain his QoL
This is really not a problem at all.
It doesnt punish success before govt.
It punishes sucess after govt. (Speaker fees anyone?)
The problem currently is that govt attracts people that want to make a career (and profit) out of it. I posit, thats exactly the people you dont want in govt.
You want highly competent people in government. If generally they can make significantly (e.g. even 10x or more, I'm talking about upper management/CEP level position of course) in the private sector more often than not they will do that. The public sector will be left with the leftovers.
I'd any day pick somebody whose highly qualified, experienced and generally 'intelligent' but somewhat corrupt over someone who "chose" to serve the country because he couldn't get a job in the private sector or is strongly motivated by his ideological beliefs but has no clue what he's doing.
Not being an industry expert shouldn't necessarily be a disqualifier. For example we don't insist that the secretary of health should be a doctor, or that the defence ministry should be run by generals. The main qualities needed is being a good manager and able to listen to alternative views and being a good politician (yes, it's important to have good politicians). If anything being an outsider actually helps the organisation more because it avoids conflicts of interest like op and it keeps the head humble.
> or that the defence ministry should be run by generals.
This is a weird exception to the rule. It's a case where there is a strong argument to be made for sacrificing competence in exchange for minimizing the risk of a coup by bringing in an outsider without close relationships with the people below him.
There is no other department where we have to worry in quite the same way that they might just choose to start ignoring the rule of law, courts, and congress, and that if they do there is nothing that could really be done about it.
You don't have to look very far to find examples of militaries seizing power. Meanwhile I'm reasonably confident in saying that no aircraft regulation agency has ever seized power in the history of the planet.
I'll definitely want my country's Secretary of Health to be a doctor who understands public health and its related policies, not a politician whose primarily skill is being popular and getting elected.
>The main qualities needed is being a good manager and able to listen to alternative views and being a good politician.
A Health Secretary who's not a doctor would find it difficult to judge if they're being fed the right information by their advisers.
Remember that Boeing's woes began when the company ceased to be run by the engineers and aviation experts, but instead by the arrogant MBA counters who likely pitched themselves as good managers. It turns out they mostly cared about management and printing cash, but lacked engineering expertise, leading to screwups like the 737 Max.
If by “doctor” you mean, as people usually do in general conversation, an MD (or DO), why? Public health is an entirely different discipline from medicine, with its own series of professional degrees. As is public administration. As is public policy. Why would a top-level public administrator and public policy professional in the field of public health need to have a professional degree in medicine more than one in public health, public administration, or public policy?
OTOH, your Surgeon-General or equivalent should definitely be a medical doctor.
That's the point of being a good manager. Being able to forge personal relationships and to trust your underlings. Having experience in an industry isn't that helpful when dealing with policy that lies outside a heads direct field of expertise.
Being a doctor doesn't automatically provide a greater insight into what would make policies more successful. Yes he might have first hand knowledge of conditions on the ground, but the longer he's been out of doctoring the less up to date he will be and he will just be stuck with old notions of what things were like years ago.
Your point about boeing is irrelevant, because the managment these had motives beyond engineering excellence, i.e making money.
Why not? The head of the WHO is not a medical doctor, he's a doctor in the sense that he has a PhD.
There is probably no organization more trusted than the WHO.
This is probably the root of the reason for the problem in the first place - Boeing can ship bad planes and they won't get stopped until they fall out of the sky multiple times - and even then nothing real will change.
Let's put the names out in the public.
Recently they wanted to hire a guy who knew nothing about aviation
It's not that he knew nothing about aviation (he ran Denver International Airport), he didn't have first-hand experience as a pilot. But here's the thing - that's okay. FAA is a mess right now, and Phil Washington has experience cleaning up messy organizations. That works perfectly find for a Federal administrative position where you're generally only on the job for a few years and move on. You can argue that it's even fine in the long term - how much software or hardware engineering experience does Tim Cook have again?
Sometimes the only way to escape regulatory capture is to hire an outsider, at least temporarily.
Unfortunately the administration did Washington dirty by not properly preparing him for his confirmation hearing.
Running an airport is running a business. An airport parks airplanes and collects rent from airlines and concessionaires. It wouldn’t teach you what you need to know to regulate airlines or air safety.
It's not if you want competency