
Boeing might represent the greatest indictment of 21st-century capitalism - wolfgke
https://www.salon.com/2019/04/27/boeing-might-represent-the-greatest-indictment-of-21st-century-capitalism_partner/
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Nasrudith
This article reminds me of ones I have read about the British class system and
how it has been blamed for failures in being technically innovative despite
being the nation which produced Alan Turing.

I think it might be profound yet sort of obvious - hierarchical organizations
reflect the failings of their heads as their control causes the organizations
to reflect their /actual/ values, the ones not on banal mission statements but
how they act.

The same already happened with Detroit car companies and how they have often
been a joke even domestically.

The real question is how to reform or replace Wall Street Investment
"management" as they lead down hill by being too short-termist and bean
counter.

They seem somewhat aware of it themselves in some ways with market caps often
being higher in tech companies with "executive" shares given disproportionate
control value to founders.

~~~
prewett
I've come to the conclusion that the problem with large, MBA-managed companies
is that they are centrally-planned dictatorships. I think the founders
typically make an effort to have the leaves make decisions, but after the
founders are gone then decision-making centralizes. Beyond a certain size,
central-planning is inefficient, as we've seen with Communist countries. And
from my outside perspective, MBA programs teach people that central-planning
is what produces "shareholder returns". Add in some hubris on the part of the
CEO and the fact that control is the easiest way to get people to do what you
the central-planning agency wants, and you get the large corporation.

Leadership is vision and empowering the leaves, but that takes knowing
yourself (to get the vision) and courage (to let the leaves have control).
It's easier to act like a boss and give yourself the title of "leader". The
only difference between a boss and a dictator is that that a boss controls by
economic power and a dictator controls by physical power.

(Of course, most companies and management are somewhere in-between the poles)

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86carr
If the massive success of air travel in the US, which Boeing is a part of, is
a product of 21st-century capitalism, THEN SIGN ME UP FOR MORE OF THAT! This
article seems a bit myopic.

~~~
blub
The massive success was in the 20th century, the 21st has been a massive
annoyance because of the loss of rights and privacy.

The interesting thing to me is that Boeing seems to have completely failed to
restrain management pressure to perform economically and went right past the
acceptable performance boundary (dynamic safety model).

Even an allegedly high reliability organization was not able to escape bean
counting in the end. It would seem that capitalism's typical obsession with
profit can't be reconciled with reliability on the long term.

~~~
nwah1
Corporations and capitalism are different things. Capitalism is composed of a
constant churn of organizations which are all failing at different rates. The
point is that the system as a whole is not reliant upon the continual success
of any of them. In a planned economy, the entire system depends on a single
institution remaining competent indefinitely.

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CorvusCrypto
This article seems to focus on things from a perspective of things from a
small plane pilot. So a little wider perspective might be helpful.

A 737 first off is not a Cessna like the author mentions flying. You do not
get to use direct inputs easily nor do you want to have to fight stab trim
because the force on the stabilizer control surfaces is muuuch higher than
those on a slower flying plane. Because of this, when the 737 came out there
were designs for trim systems that can help. These systems work by adjusting
the trim settings for pitch using motors (like the author mentioned). However
sometimes these systems would give erroneous inputs to the trim. The system
might be causing incorrect trim up or down depending on the failure. This is
officially known as stabilizer trim runaway. The procedure for this has been
well established as a memory item meaning all pilots of 737s must be able to
correct this without referencing a checklist since it is so dangerous. And it
is HARD to correct because of the aerodynamic forces on the stabilizer. You
can find videos of training for it. Now they introduced MCAS. A system
designed to adjust trim automatically to compensate for the shift in the
moments acting on the plane due to powerplant placement, etc. This adjusts the
trim as well to prevent to high of angle of attack that would allow these
different moments to introduce a stall situation. So what procedure should you
use if it starts giving incorrect inputs? That's right, the stab trim runaway
procedures, which again should be a memory item all pilots of these 737s
should know and be ready and able to execute. The differences between systems
that cause it just means you are taking different systems out of the control
loop. This is also why I believe the FAA said it was fine to forego full
airframe certification requirements. The procedures for handling the plane
just didn't change drastically enough.

Yes there was negligence on Boeing's part, but I also think it's worrying that
the reports seemed to indicate that the correct procedures for runaway stab
trim were not followed which could have saved lives (e.g. turning MCAS back on
while dealing with runaway stab trim). Also something to note is the plane in
Ethiopian airways' crash was flying with "unusually high thrust settings".
Remember the aerodynamic forces that make runaway stab trim a bitch to deal
with? Well those forces get stronger with more speed. People are quick to
point the finger at Boeing and surely they ARE at fault in some ways, but
what's worrying to me is that there are pilots that are being trained that
cannot perform the proper procedures that have been known since way before
MCAS. Whats more is that the motors for trim from MCAS is limited to move at a
rate of 2.5 degrees over 10 seconds with a pause of 5 seconds before the next
adjustment. This is definitely slow enough to give pilots time to catch the
runaway trim, cutout the stab trim and regain control. Anyway I am just
surprised that the engineer, working for Boeing, couldn't be arsed to also
give this info which allows an alternative perspective. It is bad that stab
trim runaway is happening more with this system and Boeing acknowledged it and
pushed patches. It is worse imo that pilots are forgetting or just not being
trained on how to recognize and correct for stab trim.

Edit: Any details or numbers about the systems I got wrong please post a
comment so I can correct it.

~~~
Jonnax
The question I have is: Would the plane have crashed if the plane was a non
MAX 737?

I don't think so, but I'm open to being proved wrong. In that case the root
cause of the two crashes is Boeing trying to save money.

~~~
CorvusCrypto
I think it's not just that question and this is what I dislike about the whole
discussion. It's all about Boeing and no one is also asking "if proper
procedure was performed for runaway stab trim (again, a generalized memory
item) would the plane have crashed? And it does seem the sentiment is to hell
with anyone suggesting pilots and airlines involved share part of the blame
despite evidence.

I could also ask, would the plane have crashed if it WASNT a max and another
stab trim system failed?

It's both. We need to look at everything otherwise we will end up solving only
1 part of the issue.

Edit: To address something you mentioned about root cause (in aviation it's
almost never a single root cause and I will give an example that shows such
cases here). Let's look at another situation: Assume P&W designs an engine
model a plane uses. The plane they are used in has in-air engine fire
procedures that must be performed in order to mitigate disaster regardless of
the engine model used. Now imagine the new engine design causes more engine
fires. If pilots don't manage the problem appropriately when it occurs, what
is the root cause? The poor engine design? Improper training from the pilot?
In my opinion it's, again, both. Poor training coupled with higher chance of
system issues.

~~~
im_down_w_otp
The pilots and the airlines didn't design, build, and release a semi-
autonomous system which isn't resilient to erroneous data, despite the failure
case for that problem being catastrophic.

If an Automotive OEM released a vehicle with an adaptive cruise control system
that refused to disable itself except by the human driver intervening through
power cycling the vehicle, while driving, it's difficult to put much warranted
blame on the driver. The OEM sold a potentially catastrophically faulty
system, irrespective of that the fault can sometimes be managed into a fail-
safe condition by the driver.

The reason people put the blame on Boeing is because the system implementation
didn't fail, the design did.

~~~
CorvusCrypto
It doesn't refuse to disable. People are mixing this up with overriding
control inputs. It is still possible to take MCAS out if the control loop
using stab trim cutout. However when left active it does override pilot
inputs. Think of it as the alpha authority that exists on airbuses. However if
you follow proper stab trim runaway procedures you cutout stab trim taking
MCAS out which restores pilot authority. Again this procedure should be second
nature to 737 pilots of any submodel.

In your example, if there were adaptive cruise control, I would turn off
cruise control by hitting the button. Same options are present here. However
it does mean that braking or acceleration would be overriden until that
happens. But the real analogy is if all drivers had to be trained that you
turn off cruise control in runaway. If you don't do that, well then you will
crash and it's from system failure AND improper general procedure

~~~
im_down_w_otp
The example analog I chose is actually a thing, and hitting the button does
nothing.

The problem is in the design. Despite the fact that it's possible to defeat
the failure in some instances (assuming it hopefully doesn't manifest itself
too close to the disaster envelope to start with), the failure case 1) never
should have happened and 2) shouldn't require unintuitive remediation.

It's bad design and bad functional-safety analysis. Neither of which fall to
the fleet operator or system operator.

~~~
CorvusCrypto
Yes I agree. And I'm pleading that everyone also recognise the other aspects
of these.incidents such as improper basic procedure. It's all of the above.

Edit: And remember at the end of the day, these airlines and pilots agreed to
fly the plane. Even in the wake of the LionAir incident. At the end of the
day, the pilots choose to fly and can say no if they aren't comfortable. And
if the answer to this is that there is pressure from airlines to keep flying?
We just found another major issue and danger in aviation

Edit2: should clarify actually that I agree it's a bad design. Not about the
procedures being "unintuitive". If the pilots think the corrective procedures
are unintuitive they shouldn't fly any 737 since stab trim systems exist on
all 737s and require the same corrective procedure in runaway stab trim.

~~~
cmurf
Are you a pilot? If so what are your qualifications?

Have you read the ET302 preliminary report? In particular have you read page
25, section 2 "Initial findings" last bullet which I quote:

 _The crew performed runaway stabilizer checklist and put the stab trim cutout
switch to cutout position and confirmed that the manual trim operation was not
working._

How can you read that, and say multiple times in this thread "improper
procedure"? On what basis?

You have no idea how much mental discipline it's taking me, as a pilot, to
refrain from ad hominem attack. Your arguments are that bad, they are that
willfully contrary to the available facts.

~~~
CorvusCrypto
I get it. I understand everyone's frustration. In similar fashion I understand
how unlikely it is a crew would have the mental capacity to deal with stick
shakers, GPWS callouts, and still fix the problem and that is the tragedy
here. However the report said they followed proper procedure but look at the
data. 95% N1, turning auto trim on and off a few times, the last time causing
the huge -2G bump. There also is not enough data to us yet to determine they
did regain control of the plane before enabling electric trim again. I don't
think in the case of runaway trim you are supposed to keep switching the
cutoff and leave your plane above Vmo. Something doesn't add up according to
the data imo.

~~~
cmurf
This is such a bullshit response. You don't answer any of my questions. You
proceed to armchair pilot. You use terms you cannot completely understand from
a big picture yet claim to come at this from a big picture perspective. That's
so out of order.

Do you know a power reduction causes a nose down moment and actually makes the
problem worse?

What does "turning auto trim on and off" mean? Are you referring to the you're
toggle it the stab trim switches flipped between normal and cutoff? If the
latter you are wrong, zero evidence that happened a few times.

There was no -2 G vertical acceleration.

What you are doing is in my view a mental disturbance. You are using terms as
if you know what you're talking about. You don't. You are a bullshitter.

Please stop.

~~~
CorvusCrypto
Okay. Calm down for 1. Also the prelim data is there to review. The graph
shows clearly there's a large plunge and there absolutely was a negative g
report in the prelim showing that at the final few moments the trim settings
from the FCC gave another correction. As for the cutoff, the report
annotations tell you when they toggled the cutout switch. I went back and yeah
actually you're right it was only once to cutoff and back to normal sorry for
that mistake. However the overspeed is still supported from the data and yes
the data shows vertical g forces and at the end there was a lurch of -2 Gs
before total loss. It's on page 27.

As for less speed causing more nose down moment, yeah but at the same time
they weren't in a descent for that portion either, nor were they nose down
(this from page 26). The data shows they were oscillating though climbing
slightly while they were overspeeding. In this case it could have helped to
reduce the forces at play. I think it was more that they were just busy and
left thrust settings where they were from takeoff.

