This is a huge self-own. Would this ever happen to a Chinese manufacturer?
This is a case of American regulators putting an American company's business interests above safety. If it had been a foreign aircraft manufacturer, I doubt the FAA would have waited to ground the planes.
I don’t know what is the name for this faulty programming but it is very disturbing. I guess this is some kind of default behaviour of nationalism?
Imagine that you live in a country where everyone is corrupt and everyone lies. If you don't lie you're an idiot.
Then you read news about horrible US government failures. If the problems are so large that they cannot possibly keep lying and they openly admit to their failures, then what fucked up things still are there that they don't admit to doing? China at least manages to keep it shush. Therefore, whatever they do, shit at least doesn't hit the fan.
It's very difficult to imagine that a different society might have different standards regarding things such as transparency.
https://www.si.com/tennis/2023/03/29/peng-shuai-wta-principl...
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/chinas-sacked-fo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanlu_Group
"On 22 January 2009, Tian was sentenced to life imprisonment, while other Sanlu executives received sentences of five to fifteen years. Two other men were sentenced to death"
Changsheng Biotech Vaccine Scandal (2018): The chairwoman of Changsheng Biotech, Gao Junfang, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Kanghui Pharmaceutical Case (2007): The general manager, Ni Chunlin, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Case (2006): The factory director received a 7-year prison sentence.
Shanghai Hualian Pharmaceutical Case (2007): Two executives were sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment).
They aren't death sentences due to messing up airplanes due to mismanagement or cost cutting, but actually poisoning people on a mass scale or knowingly making bad drugs.
It's not comparable. Those things are more like the Sackler opioid case.
A couple of hundreds dead due to bad engineering is better than outright poisoning people by substitutions or killing people on a mass scale with bad drugs.
In the Chinese cases I mentioned, the executives did not personally kill people. They only committed fraud, which put millions at risk of death when using their inferior products, which is comparable to what Boeing did.
The executives intentionally and knowingly committed fraud, which put anyone at risk when they fly in a 737 Max (millions of people per year). It was not the engineers fault. The engineers and quality inspectors concerns were ignored by management. The executives prioritized stock price over safety. I am not exaggerating when I say the executives committed fraud. That is the view of federal prosecutors.
In total 346 people died, and there would have been more deaths if the entire global fleet were not grounded for several years by international regulators. It's not just the Max. Anyone who flies in any Boeing aircraft is at risk if the company is committing fraud at this scale.