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Comment by Molitor5901 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the justification for this. I am familiar with the NTSB's practices (thanks in on small part to Admiral Cloudberg) but I do not see how Boeing put a foot wrong on this issue. Won't the NTSB report say what it will say regardless what Boeing says or does??

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At bottom it's about public opinion, not paper documents.

Boeing has tried to saturate the public's interest in the topic with a self-serving line of spin, front-running the public authorities. That way, when the NTSB report finally comes out, any negative info would struggle to overturn already set opinions.

They aren't having a whole lot of success then because they come across like a bunch of franchise fast food managers who accidentally parachuted into an engineering and manufacturing corp and haven't managed to find the bathrooms yet.

Just because they aren't having success in breaking the rules, doesn't mean they shouldn't be sanctioned for it.

In a parallel universe, with a friendlier press, they'd be quite successful at weaponizing public opinion in their favor.

No argument there. Of the many baffling things about the ongoing Boeing saga, why the executive wing of the company isn't hiding in a bunker in New Zealand while their lawyers try to fend off a zombie apocalypse of minority investor lawsuits is definitely a head-scratcher for me. There's also the quant notion of the government applying career-altering fines when corporations step out of line but it's been so long now that this is just a bitter memory for cranky olds.

But Boeing has the same right that anyone has to do PR, right? The NTSB is not entitled to public opinion going their way. It's completely beyond the scope of their regulatory power.

Until the investigation is complete you want to minimize events that interfere with it. For Boeing's part they get to continue to operate until the investigation is completed and decisions made. This is the trade, otherwise, we could just shut down your entire company indefinitely until we determine if it should be reopened or not.

This is a highly regulated industry and it is so for the benefit of all citizens that use these services. Boeing is a for profit company that is speaking for the benefit of their own bottom line. It's not their decision to make.

Because they signed an agreement with the NTSB not to "[provide] investigative information [or give] an analysis of factual information previously released", and then did it anyways.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20240627.as...

Agreed. They're being "sanctioned" for answering the media's questions about their own company, probably because the NTSB wants to control the narrative. The "sanction" seems to amount to nothing, though. No fine. No change to the investigation. Just bureaucratic finger-wagging and empty threats.

Boeing certainly deserves to be investigated and prosecuted, if the evidence supports it, but arbitrarily refusing to let them talk to the media is wrong.

TFA seems pretty clear about it? For example:

"The NTSB said that during a media briefing on Tuesday, a Boeing executive provided non-public investigative information to journalists about the Alaska Airlines incident that the agency had not verified or authorized for release."

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

> provided non-public investigative information to journalists about the Alaska Airlines incident that the agency had not verified or authorized for release

I think "non-public" is key here ...

>They're being "sanctioned" for answering the media's questions about their own company

It is customary for someone to answer "I/We will withhold any comments pending an ongoing investigation." against such questions. If you violate that, at best you're a flaming idiot and at worst you're trying to derail the investigation.

All that to say: If you're under investigation, kindly STFU until the dust has settled and everything is finished.

It is good advice to not talk about an ongoing investigation, but the government should not be able to force you not to. Talking about an investigation is not "derailing" it.

The "bureacratic finger-wagging" in this particular context is a lesser evil than the alternative, allowing a corporation to pre-manufacture public opinion by contaminating the neutrality of the investigation and prosecution. It's just a lesser evil given the status quo of the opposing systems of regulation and capitalism.

How on earth is speaking to the media about their own analysis of what happened going to "contaminate the neutrality of the investigation and prosecution"?

Are the NTSB and DOJ so easily swayed that Boeing's words will negate their ability to tell fact from fiction? And if so, why should we listen to them at all?

Protecting a government narrative is NOT a valid reason to suppress speech. That is the path to despotism.

> How on earth is speaking to the media about their own analysis of what happened going to "contaminate the neutrality of the investigation and prosecution"?

Something along the lines of "if the findings are negative then the system is rigged against us."

This is the United States and you have every right to claim the system is rigged against you even if it isn't. You even have the right to sue if you believe it. This does not impede the investigation in any way.

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