
Boeing Resisted Pilots’ Calls for Aggressive Steps on 737 Max - aburan28
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/business/boeing-737-max-ethiopian-plane-crash.html
======
PaulHoule
What people are forgetting is that Boeing did it all to head off competition
from the E190 and Bombardier C-Series, both of which are smaller planes than
the 737 but are bigger in terms of passenger comfort while being smaller in
terms of noise and global warming impact.

Boeing discounted the 737 MAX by more than 70% to force Bombardier to sell the
C-Series below cost, which forced Bombardier to sell a controlling share to
Airbus for $0.

I rode in a E175 and was blown away by the passenger experience; the 2nd
generation E-Jets are much better and the A220 is better still. Boeing hopes
that you don't ride in one and realize you don't have to settle for a 737.

(Not like I trust Airbus with the A220, since they've got the same motivation
to string the A320 along that Boeing has to string along the 737)

~~~
sokoloff
I’ve flown in many an E190/195 and almost as many E170/175 that I can
specifically recall. The small size of the cabin is a large negative for many
people. Carry on bags don’t fit near as well; the galley is small so food
service is weak; for people afraid of flying, the living room experience in a
787 or A380 is far superior. I didn’t find cabin noise levels to be especially
pleasant (nor unpleasant) in the small Embraers, but they’re amazingly nice in
the 787 and even a step better on the upper deck on the 380.

I fly small piston aircraft for a lot of our travel, so even an A319 or MD90
is top luxury in some sense.

I don’t think people generally feel like they’re “settling” in a 737. I just
got off a 737-800 BOS-ATL in fact. I do feel like I’m settling when I strap on
an E170/175 on a short haul flight. I put them as clearly superior to Saab
340s and Dash-8 aircraft, but that’s about it. It makes taking the train
(Amtrak!) seem worthy of consideration for BOS-PHL type trips.

~~~
ReGenGen
I just flew in a KLM E190 "CityHopper" and the seating was significantly more
spacious than recent 737ng experiences. Seat layout allows for large carry ons
under the seats. No problem. 2x2 rows means football players don't get stuck
in a middle seat. I also noticed the E190 noise level was lower than 737.

~~~
eecc
I took one once and I was blown away by how smooth it felt in flight.

Airbus are nervous, jiggly and constantly jittering along as the avionics
happily acknowledges the plane is within envelope. Boeing planes feel more
damped and they don’t remind me of my flight stress as often.

But the Embraer?! I flew one over the English Channel, windy and all that; and
yet, it sailed along gently.

~~~
dboreham
Hmm...I fly frequently (every month) on either Boeing or Airbus planes and but
for the seat pocket card I'd be hard pressed to identify one from the other.

------
tuna-piano
“You’ve got to understand that our commitment to safety is as great as yours,”
Mr. Sinnett [Boeing Exec] said in the meeting. “The worst thing that can ever
happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one.”

But yet, even after the second crash Boeing still insisted they continue to
fly the plane. It's like they pre-determined their decision and any evidence
or additional crashes be damned.

I don't want to have too much hindsight though - if the AA pilots union really
didn't want to fly the plane, presumably the union could have chosen not to
fly the plane (I think it's in most pilots contracts?). In fact, even after
Ethiopian crash, American pilots continued to fly the plane. Though part of
this may have been because they didn't have the full amount of information
Boeing did.

~~~
mevile
It's just words. Actions speak louder than words. Their actions fly in the
face of all the nice sounding things they say, and report after report fly in
the face of all of Boeing's denials and claims of safety.

Boeing has gone into liability defensive mode at the expense of the lives of
passengers, the safety of air travel, and America's credibility in aerospace
engineering.

Boeing is either going to face a major reckoning that they may not survive or
maybe we'll have more deaths from accidents due to their negligent behavior.

I'm basing all this on the many reports about what is going on around the 737
MAX aircraft published in the WSJ and the New York Times. It hasn't been
pretty.

I don't think that plane should ever fly again as engineered. It seems to
require software to address problems with the large engine and the plane's
form that other jets do not have. If a software patch can make the aircraft
safe, then a bug can make it unsafe. Does the FAA validate all the aircraft
software patches Boeing issues?

~~~
ReGenGen
Other airliners w/ large turbofans have a pitch-up under climb/thrust
characteristics. (like B777) We don't know if 737 MAX's pitch-up stall
handling characteristics are really bad -or- just different from older 737's.
MCAS was put in place to allow the MAX to be type certified w/ other 737's so
737 pilots could fly the 737 MAX and vice versa. (Airline pilots can only hold
1 type certification at a time.)

~~~
acqq
> MCAS was put in place to allow the MAX to be type certified w/ other 737's

But the expected behavior which MCAS was to provide was not something invented
only for "other 737's." Whichever plane would behave as the MAX behaves
without MCAS turned on would also be rejected from certification.

Only Boeing being silent about MCAS is the effect of the goal of "avoiding re-
certification."

> We don't know

I can't agree to that. Based on the above, I think it is obvious that we do
know: 737 MAX without any MCAS-like help is dangerous to fly according to the
security expectations which weren't specially invented for 737 MAX.

~~~
lmm
> But the expected behavior which MCAS was to provide was not something
> invented only for "other 737's." Whichever plane would behave as the MAX
> behaves without MCAS turned on would also be rejected from certification.

No, it would have been a perfectly certifiable plane with a particular set of
handling characteristics (including 777-like pitch-up). It just wouldn't be a
737, and would require its own type certificate. No-one's suggesting that
large turbofan aircraft with pitch-up behaviour are inherently unsafe _when
flown by pilots appropriately trained and certified for them_ \- otherwise the
777 would be grounded.

~~~
acqq
> No-one's suggesting that large turbofan aircraft with pitch-up behaviour are
> inherently unsafe

It is as long it keeps 737 MAX body and engines and doesn’t have something
like MCAS I.e. Inherently unsafe under conditions under which MCAS was
supposed to turn on when properly functioning.

The certification requirements are the result of the clear safety goals not
something invented “just so.”

~~~
salawat
MCAS was a type certificate hack.

The poster you're responding to is right; there isn't anything wrong with the
behavior given the right training.

It's just that the investment in that training, and extra certification hoops
to jump through would have made WhateveroModelNumberus MAX a non-starter.

It had to be a 737 to work at all.

~~~
acqq
> there isn't anything wrong with the behavior given the right training.

The behaviour without MCAS on 737 MAX is that minimal movements of pilot’s
controls effectively activate what would be considered “amplification” of nose
up movement, resulting in an uncontrollable plane and sure crash.

It’s definitely not something that pilots or passengers should be exposed to:
being punished for approaching more dangerous position by plane forcing a
deadly outcome.

Training pilots to not to move even minimally the controls in the “wrong”
direction is maybe technically possible but in practice still totally wrong:
It’s comparable to what Boeing told everybody before Ethiopian crash, and
their attempts to blame the pilots. In reality, the pilots had almost no
chance to rescue themselves and the plane.

In engineering the “positive feedback loops” (amplification of control inputs)
are bad the “negative feedback loops” (correction of the input) are good.

The functioning MCAS provides a correction. The plane without MCAS
amplification. Badly functioning MCAS also amplification and crash. That's why
the wrong behavior was regulated, and that's why it had to be fulfilled for
the certification. It’s that easy.

To convince me that 737 MAX without the "properly functioning MCAS" isn't
inherently dangerous under higher angles of attack you'd have to provide some
explicit proofs.

~~~
salawat
727 had about the same issue. Interactions with high lift devices would cause
major problems on approach to stall.

The FAA certified it anyway. The U.K. gave it conditional certification
contingent on the addition of a stick-pusher to be able to operate in U.K.
airspace. See the Royal Aeronautics Society D.P. Davies Interview,
specifically the 727 one.

There was quite a bit of controversy amongst test pilots at even granting the
certification, seeing it as setting a precedent that would lead to a slippery
slope that would culminate in less and less airworthy designs.

Nevertheless, the certification authorities accepted the argument that as long
as instabilities could be countered by technological means, it would be
acceptable.

Let me clarify though, that without MCAS, a responsible pilot would definitely
be constrained to a much thinner envelope, but within that thinner envelope,
the plane can fly just fine.

The deployment of flaps, also takes the plane out of a regime where MCAS is a
factor.

So both legal, and practical precedent for it exists. Given additional
training of course.

~~~
acqq
> The U.K. gave it conditional certification contingent on the addition of a
> stick-pusher to be able to operate in U.K. airspace.

Boeing 727 was clearly from another times: "As of July 2018, a total of 44
Boeing 727s were in commercial service" "Many airlines replaced their 727s
with either the 737-800 or the Airbus A320."

> both legal, and practical precedent for it exists.

Does it? The devil is in the details. Speaking as an engineer, both the
measurements of the ranges in which the changes happen and the characteristics
of the responses to controls still matter. I wouldn't be surprised that it's
still 737 MAX that would be "a precedent" with worse characteristics when the
stall is possible (and without proper MCAS-like help) than those measured in
727.

It's the conditions under which the problems occur and the response diagrams
that the regulators are supposed to verify, not the binary "has or hasn't" a
problem near the stall. I'm quite sure that the technology at the time of 727
introduction was already more than capable of producing the relevant diagrams,
so they can be compared. Thanks for specifying your arguments in the answer.

~~~
salawat
No problem! I'm as eager to get to the bottom of things as anyone, so I'm
trying to be a careful steward of as much context as I can to keep discussions
productive, and to rephrase in as many different ways as possible to increase
visibility and reasonability to anyone who can help contribute more context.

>It's the conditions under which the problems occur and the response diagrams
that the regulators are supposed to verify, not the binary "has or hasn't" a
problem near the

Ah, I hadn't run into this tidbit before! Can you elaborate on it? I'd love to
get some more detailed information if only to facilitate my own deep diving.
I've been repeating the 727 simimilarity, and if there's any footwork I can do
to make that more accurate, I'd be thrilled to run with it.

I do know Boeing was generally considered notorious amongst test pilots for
knowing exactly how their designs would fly, so I can't imagine that those
diagrams can't be found somewhere.

~~~
acqq
> Can you elaborate on it? I'd love to get some more detailed information if
> only to facilitate my own deep diving.

To appreciate non-binariness of the problem, just try to find the pictures of
different flight envelopes under different flight conditions for different
planes and compare them. The wrongness in claiming that every plane can be
qualified with just "has x" or "hasn't" is then more than obvious.

Then imagine that you'd actually need the _response_ diagrams -- some valid
measurement of how the plane _reacts_ to the controls. That is the actual
point of problem: exactly how the curves look like, where are which limits
between "fine" and "deadly" and how dangerous is which kind of movement or
non-movement of which control.

Then consider that Boeing even after the first crash claimed that
"everything's fine" in their "additional instructions" which were followed by
the Ethiopian air pilots but that then the plane responses were such that the
pilots were practically helpless: the plane "didn't listen." That's what's
happening with the positive feedbacks, and that is what "nose up" behavior is
-- but the answer is not "yes-no" but where and how much in every point.

The helplessness (or not) of the pilots (i.e. how much of their force produces
how much of the outcome under which conditions) is also something that can be
plainly measured and drawn.

I don't have the corresponding (complex) pictures of Boeing 737 MAX flying
without the MCAS. And I don't think they are available at the moment. But that
_is the point_. Who are those who claim that _they know it 's safe_ and what
is the basis of their claim? We have already plain demonstration that Boeing
openly lied with their "everything's fine" claims -- I can't imagine that
nobody inside of a company that is supposed to sell the planes orders of which
measure hundreds of billions of dollars has such pictures.

But who can say simple "it's safe" when to be able to really claim it somebody
has to evaluate these complex aspects demonstrated by the diagrams and not
just construct a simple "yes-or-no-is-it-kinda-same-as-this-other-thing"
question?

Reducing that whole topic to such kind of argument "well 727 was bad too" is
obviously misleading. The way I still see it is: had it been it actually safe
to fly it without a functioning MCAS, there would be no "regulatory
requirement" to put it there at all. The "requirement" was an actual "it's not
safe without it." But the way that "requirement" looked like was also not "yes
no" but "see this diagrams -- the plane should approximately behave so and not
the opposite of that." And the opposite is the characteristic of the positive
feedback loops. MCAS was there to polish one resulting from the design driven
by the marketing goal, not by physics.

Imagine when you would move the steering wheel to make a slight turn and when
the car would "listen to you" under e.g. 30 mph but respond in turning you
much out of the road when the speed is higher. "Well you should be trained not
to try to turn the wheel when over 35 mph" "Really?" "Yes you see that other
old car also responded kinda like this one, yes that old one couldn't have
killed you so easily, yes, this one will, but don't worry that's actually the
same, trust me, because I'm the one making and selling you this new car."
"..." That's not how the sameness is compared.

~~~
salawat
I get where you are coming from. And understand it isn't binary. I was hoping
you knew what what the name of the various diagrams you asserted were being
evaluated were.

I understand there are different levels of problematic behavoor, because
something that causes a 3 degree uncommanded pitch over say 10 seconds is a
sight less severe than one that does the same over 3 seconds.

I'm still not seeing anything that's significantly changing my mental model of
this problem. Physically, legally and pragmatically speaking.

-The plane remains statically stable within the majority of the flight envelope.

-Dynamic stability still isn't quite there, but can be handled with more conservative maneuvering.

-Critical information was deemphasized in the certification process, or changed after the fact

-the promised deliverable did not achieve it's stated goals without excessive "compliance engineering"

The plane is absolutely dangerous to an uninformed pilot; but aerodynamically,
within a constrained flight envelope, it's fine. I don't personally feel it
should be airworthy, as I agree with many test pilot's from back in the 60's.
It just encourages the use of less airworthy designs with less problematic
behavior, because a computer can smooth out the curve, and yet as a programmer
myself,I believe a passenger plane should not be reliant on that level of hack
necessarily.

As it is, I'm not even highly confident that if there were something wrong
with the software update, that the FAA would even catch it in it's current
incarnation.

But without language naming the graphs you're talking about, or need to see to
be convinced of safety, a FOIA would honestly be fruitless.

Thanks for the contributing though. I'll see if I can find the paperwork.

~~~
acqq
If you consider FOIA then it could be, for example:

\- of the logs of the measurements of the test flights flown on the 737 MAX
prototypes with the new engines but without the MCAS, if the test flights are
flown to establish the flight envelope, especially of the correlation to the
pilot's input and the plane's response.

\- of the calculations or of the physical models of the said response to the
pilots input, on the plane without the MCAS. Such parameters and models are
indeed used e.g. in the flight simulators.

\- Note that even if there were planed deliveries of hundreds of billions (!)
worth of 737 MAX planes, up to recently only four (!) flight simulators for
737 MAX were delivered. I don't know if it's possible to even fly them without
assuming MCAS "always working perfectly."

I'm not directly in that field to be able to give you a "local" jargon though.
My view is a result of just reading those newspaper articles which provided
enough engineering details (and a few forums) and I do remember seeing some
complex enough related graphs for which I''m sure they couldn't be invented by
a journalist, but surely not a "definitive plainly obvious proof". But there
is indeed a lot still kept hidden from the public, and I'm sure there are more
technical details that are significantly worse than we are ready to imagine.

------
throw7
Damning article for Boeing execs... just one quote:

“We don’t want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing the right things and we
also don’t want to fix the wrong things,” Mr. Sinnett said, later adding, “For
flight-critical software, I don’t think you want us to rush, rush it faster.”

Well Mr. Sinnett, that's exactly what you did in the development of the 737
Max.

~~~
politician
He's certainly making an air tight case for keeping those planes on the
ground.

------
40acres
Hard to think of a better case study on the perils of regulatory capture than
Boeing.

~~~
ReGenGen
Amazing how Boeing was restructured from an engineering & production
organization into a political influence machine. Production was spread (and
outsourced) from Seattle out to key influential states and HQ moved to
Chicago.

~~~
PaulHoule
Not just US influence but international influence.

In the 777 and 787 eras, Boeing decentralized production all over the world,
and it's hard to say that Airbus is really a European company because they've
done the same.

Back in the day so many countries had to have a fourth- or fifth-rate car
industry, and to head that off, the Boeing-Airbus duopoly distributed
production all over the place so politicians in most countries could point to
some part in a Boeing or Airbus airliner that was made in their country to
discourage the development of an indigenous industry.

~~~
dingaling
Which is why the safety cards in US airline cabins cleverly state "Country of
final manufacture: ___"; another subtle win for Boeing.

------
salawat
Actually, that statement,

>"For flight-critical software, I don’t think you want us to rush, rush it
faster.”

may come back to haunt them, given it doesn't line up with the paperwork they
filed, or with anything about the way they tried to get the plane certified.
The fact he said that before the investigation completed implies they knew how
critical MCAS was.

Something tells me "that was just talk!", will not go over well.

EDIT: deparaphrased quote.

~~~
linuxftw
Important point, I think. They also gave MCAS an innocuous name: "Maneuvering
Characteristics Augmentation System" Sound better than 'pitch-up stall
prevention system' (my vote is for 'death plummet prevention system') or
something that implies that if the system is not in place, you die. It seems
there was intent to mislead from the get-go. I'd love to see their internal
documents describing the naming of this subsystem because it's got to be
highly political.

~~~
rtkwe
It's not even that. It's solely to maintain the 737 type certification to
avoid a need for retraining. The pitch up tendency isn't inherently unsafe but
it does change how pilots need to fly in certain portions of the flight
envelope. Normally this is just something they're trained on but to avoid that
we got this bodge of a system in MCAS.

~~~
linuxftw
Well, this is true only if you believe Boeing's talking points. We actually
don't know how bad the pitch effect is. Perhaps a small pilot error would
result in an unrecoverable stall. Considering Boeing modified the MCAS's
authority over what was originally stated to the FAA (malfunctions aside,
which gave it unlimited authority), why should we trust them?

What is the absolute probability that no MCAS + pilot doing what would be
normal on any other aircraft would lead to a crash? Remember, pilots go from
plane to plane, potentially of various types. If a particular plane you don't
fly frequently behaves very differently in a critical situation, that's a bad
thing. You need the muscle memory. If they only flew the MAX 100% of the time,
probably not a big deal.

Imagine twice a year you drive a someone else's car. During normal operation,
nothing out of the ordinary. However, if you apply more than 25% brake
pressure while turning left between 5-10 degrees, the steering input suddenly
goes to 60 degrees, requiring you to quickly counter steer. Now, imagine that
there's a software mitigation to prevent this over-steer. Now imagine, with
little warning, that software system is disabled, and you've never driven the
car without that system active.

It's lunacy.

~~~
rtkwe
> Remember, pilots go from plane to plane, potentially of various types. If a
> particular plane you don't fly frequently behaves very differently in a
> critical situation, that's a bad thing. You need the muscle memory. If they
> only flew the MAX 100% of the time, probably not a big deal.

That's what type certifications exist for and it's actually pretty rare for
pilots to switch between planes. In their career with a particular airline
they're going to be flying one type family of planes (eg: A319, A320, and A321
all count as the same plane from a certification standpoint) day in and day
out, it's quite expensive to get certified on a second plane.

As for your car example that's the exact thing MCAS was a bodge for it was to
make the MAX8 fly enough like the rest of the 737 family to require minimal
retraining. It was a bad bodge that should have been classified as a safety
critical system (meaning 3+ AoA etc).

Also highly relevant is it's not very clear how bad the pitch up effect is
from reporting it could vary anywhere between a slight problem that would only
really put the type rating in danger to a critical safety flaw.

[https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24073/how-
frequ...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24073/how-frequently-
are-airline-pilots-switching-between-aircraft-types-e-g-airbus)

------
resters
How many FAA officials used to work at Boeing (or related lobbying firms) or
vice versa?

~~~
cududa
Boeing was allowed to act as the FAA’s contractor in certifying the plane.

~~~
djsumdog
Reminds me of when Tennessee Valley Authority let contractors certify the dams
for its coal plans, which they failed terribly at, leading to a dam breech
that spread toxic material all over the valley and watershed outside the
Kingston Fossil plant. I covered the protests back in 2009:

[https://fightthefuture.org/videos/tva-
coal/](https://fightthefuture.org/videos/tva-coal/)

~~~
quattrofan
Let's hear it for "market forces" and unfettered capitalism, youd think we
would've learned in 2008.

~~~
ahartmetz
The market for political influence is working pretty well, no reason to use
scare quotes.

------
hodgesrm
So is Mr. Sinnett still working for Boeing? I don't see how the managers can
ride this one out.

~~~
oldjokes
Boeing appears to already be lawyering up their execs while throwing engineers
under the bus. It’s going to be all about denying everything now.

~~~
ip26
Yes, it was probably another vast multi-decade inter-company conspiracy
entirely orchestrated & executed in secret by THIS lone, junior engineer,
hired last January. Amazing how systemic this kind of problem is.

~~~
kuschku
Except, the "lone engineer" VW blamed it on was the head of the diesel engine
department, and by now even the former CEO is facing jailtime.

I doubt Boeings management will get any punishment whatsoever.

------
amelius
So when will travelers have the option to filter the aircraft
manufacturer/type in flight booking systems?

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
I assume you mean one that's contractually binding on the airline?

~~~
rtkwe
Not contractually obligated (sometimes it seems they're barely obligated to
actually fly the flight you've paid for) but airlines pretty much always fly
the same plane on the same flight number day in and day out.

------
ilaksh
The CEO of Boeing should go to prison.

~~~
symlinkk
For what?

~~~
sseth
As a start, for keeping details from pilots even after the first crash. For
example, after the first crash, Boeing did not disclose that MCAS keeps
repeating at 5 second intervals. Surely this was relevant information for
pilots in life and death situations. But perhaps it would have required Boeing
acknowledging the need for additional training, and corporate greed got the
better of their judgement.

~~~
village-idiot
Continuing to lie about the AoA disagree light being disabled is also a major
issue.

------
jumelles
Boeing apparently has no idea how to handle a crisis.

~~~
eternalban
I think Boeing accurately reflects the arrogant world view of its main client.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
This is a great comment!

Of course a company can only be a subset of the values of the world it exists
in.

~~~
unkulunkulu
If this is not irony then I have to disagree, any agent with a free will have
responsibility

------
_bxg1
Just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for all of these revelations to
mean something. Hope it does eventually.

------
julienfr112
When comparing with the Monsanto/Bayer Roundup case, there is a more direct
link between what the company has done (or not done) and the death of people.
American People died in the second crash, right ? They have a clean shot for
suing and getting a billion punitive damage, haven't they ?

~~~
hn23
See, Monsanto would not have had a problem if Bayer had not acquired it...

------
notimetorelax
I wonder what circles of hell is Mr. Sinnett destined to?

------
mzs
now reporters have audio from that meeting:
[https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/us/boeing-737-max-audio-
meeti...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/us/boeing-737-max-audio-meeting-with-
pilots/index.html)

------
quickben
"You’ve got to understand that our commitment to safety is as great as yours,"
Mr. Sinnett said in the meeting.

Which is a blatant lie considering they opted to DLC bunch of saftety
features.

~~~
inferiorhuman
_Which is a blatant lie considering they opted to DLC bunch of saftety
features._

If you're referring to the AOA indication — they didn't though. Boeing sold
the MAX to the FAA and the airlines as being equipped with an "AoA disagree"
annunciator on every single one. It turns out that the annunciator didn't work
unless you also purchased the AoA gauges (it's unclear to me whether or not
there are gauges on the primary flight display or if they're just part of the
heads-up display). That little glitch was considered too minor by Boeing to
notify the FAA or the airlines.

~~~
sundvor
So _effectively_ it did turn it into a DLC, making GP's post 100% correct.

I am past caring for or trusting their lame excuses at this point.

~~~
mustacheemperor
It’s really worse, since the aircraft was advertised as having the critical
safety feature but in reality it required the DLC. So pilots could well have
assumed there would be a warning.

~~~
village-idiot
Southwest actually called them out on this, and called Boeing a bunch of liars
(through corporate speak).

------
djsumdog
I know it's unlikely cause, America, but I'd like to see some of these
executives tried for criminal negligence. They'll most likely just face civil
suits and make settlements with passengers/pilots families ... which honestly
isn't enough. Executives need to know fucking up this bad can lean to prison
time.

~~~
fromthestart
Serious question: how would you go about determining who is at fault in such a
situation?

~~~
rectang
Very difficult, just as it would be in any large organization. Facilitation of
plausible deniability is a principle design requirement for company structure.

Worse, because of the corporate shield, any malefactors get to keep their ill-
gotten gains. (Wells Fargo's execs, even after clawbacks, wound up tens of
millions of dollars ahead.) There's no serious deterrent -- the system
encourages wrongdoing at the individual level, the perpetuation of entities
where wrongdoing occurs, and the creation of new entities where wrongdoing
will commence.

Prediction: everyone at Boeing will come in for a safe landing after a bit of
turbulence.

~~~
hef19898
Not sure. Every single design change goes through well documented review
processes in Aerospace. The bigger the change the higher the up the hierarchy
it goes. The definitely is a paper trail here. _If_ someone is willing to
investigate.

Agree with rest, organized deniability is pretty much how large orgs are set
up.

------
exabrial
I'm beginning to wonder if HN is an unwilling part of a disinformation
campaign an on 737max? It seems every day now we have a speculative article
posted like this.

~~~
dang
Please don't break the site guidelines by making insinuations about
astroturfing without evidence. If you're worried, you can email us and we'll
look at the data. People reach for this image to explain why they're seeing a
bunch of posts they disagree with or dislike—but the overwhelming majority of
the time, it's simply that the topic is divisive, with lots of users on
opposing sides.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
exabrial
I'm a bit surprised by this reaction actually. I know it's in HN favor to keep
the comment section academic; so my apologies if my comment came off construed
as conspiracy theory. Given that early 2017 a heavily discussed topic was fake
news and intentional manipulation of social media, this did not seem out of
the realm of possibility for me, hence my original comment.

~~~
dang
Agreed, the germs of the topic are still very much airborne, and that's a big
part of it. I think we just have to keep repeating this every time it comes up
(sigh). Totally clear that your intention was sincere.

