
Review of 737 Max Certification Finds Fault with Boeing and FAA - awad
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/business/boeing-737-max.html
======
colechristensen
The NTSB does a fantastic job and should be held up as a model of how to
include post-failure analyses and actions into your process. When the report
is released, it should be good reading for many in the tech and engineering
world.

>The Joint Authorities Technical Review, which produced the report, was led by
Chris Hart, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and
included representatives from the F.A.A., NASA and aviation regulators from
Europe, China, Brazil and other countries.

~~~
dvt
Sometimes I read NTSB reports for fun. It's a pleasure to read such well-
thought-out analyses that perfectly straddle technical minutia dissection with
layman accessibility. In my opinion, it's the pinnacle of technical writing.
It's also incredibly important work: these kinds of reports have made air
travel magnitudes safer than it was just 50 years ago.

~~~
wuunderbar
Are there any particular reports you found most interesting? Can you provide a
link?

~~~
dvt
The Galloping Ghost is one of my favorites:
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...](https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAB1201.pdf)

It's a terrible accident (that happened during an air show/race), but the work
that went into figuring out exactly what went wrong and where is awe-
inspiring. Also a very interesting (but tragic) story from a human standpoint.
Here's the video of the accident:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyWUTXuXjr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyWUTXuXjr0)

(No gore, but still: viewer discretion advised. Eleven people lost their lives
and sixty-nine were injured.)

------
S_A_P
The more I think about this, the more I think that the top levels of
management and anyone who was just trying to "get this plane out the door"
needs to be held accountable. Fear of competition shipping before you is no
excuse to cut corners especially when the consequences of doing so are so
grave.

~~~
zacharytelschow
Do you also feel we should hold the regulators who let it happen accountable?

~~~
S_A_P
Sure- but I think that there are differing incentives for regulators than
Boeing management. The only situation I can think of that would hold them
equally accountable is if there were collusion/corruption. I think in this
case it was lack of resources/laziness or overly trusting/naive to what Boeing
was telling them.

------
bluesign
"The task force said the certification documents that Boeing provided to the
F.A.A. “were not updated during the certification program to reflect the
changes” made to MCAS. It added that two critical documents that describe the
potential dangers of a system like MCAS, the system safety assessment and the
functional hazard assessment, “were not consistently updated."

~~~
noir_lord
Don't think anybody involved in this is coming out looking good except maybe
the aviation authorities who grounded Max's early.

From outside the US it's shredding the soft power the FAA has world wide.

Decades of earned trust burnt so quickly.

~~~
XJ6
Did anyone ground the max after the first crash or was it all in response to
the second?

~~~
the_duke
Only after the second.

Interesting tidbit: after the second crash, the Ethiopian authorities decided
to send the black box to Europe for analysis, apparently not trusting US
investigators with the data.

~~~
gshubert17
> Interesting tidbit: after the second crash, the Ethiopian authorities
> decided to send the black box to Europe for analysis, apparently not
> trusting US investigators with the data.

William Langeweische [0] describes lack of airmanship as contributing to the
737 Max crashes and cites another reason for distrust:

"In the case of the Ethiopian investigation, we have an airline and an
investigative body that historically have not been able to isolate themselves
from the country’s dysfunctional political life."

"After the cockpit voice recorder was dug out of the wreckage, it was shielded
from the N.T.S.B. and whisked to Paris. There, for reasons unknown, French
accident investigators agreed to download its contents in private onto a drive
for an immediate return to Addis Ababa, where the information remains mostly
locked away today and has been withheld in full form from any outside
observers."

[0]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-
crashes.html)

~~~
briandear
This is not an insignificant point. MCAS was flawed, no question. As a pilot
of an airplane with enhanced stability control, I have found that anything
that tries to “help” by nose down or nose up during times of unusual flight
attitudes is unwelcome and honestly scares the hell out of me when the
autopilot kicks on and overrides my inputs. Disengaging the autopilot works
for a moment, then it kicks back on: the solution is to pull the breaker when
that happens. Granted, in my case, I was attempting to intentionally stall the
airplane during familiarization training in a Cessna T206. However, an
autopilot with “stability protection” can theoretically fly you into the
ground if you aren’t trained correctly. So I am not a fan of the airplane
trying to “protect” the pilot by taking over control. However, reacting to
system anomalies is a critical part of training. Meaning knowing how and when
to react to such situations is fundamental to flying the airplane.

If we stipulate the MCAS system was faulty, that still doesn’t relieve the
pilots of responsibility. The Ethiopian copilot only had 300 _total_ flight
hours — so it’s fair to say that copilot wasn’t experienced with flying in
general, let alone type-specific experience in an airliner. Since the captain
would have been flying the airplane, the copilot would have been the one
running through the checklists. Airliners require two pilots for a reason;
that copilot had no business being right seat in a technologically advanced
airplane. Both pilots specifically failed to follow the procedures. First,
they didn’t adjust the throttle at all during the event — throttle remained at
climb power throughout, secondly, they re-engaged MCAS because while they
pulled the horizontal stabilizer trim cutout switches correctly, they failed
to realize that they had to use the manual trim wheels since the electric
yoke-mounted trim would be inoperative at that point.

Yes, MCAS was deficient, however, 90% of aviation training is learning how to
respond when things go wrong. Complaining about one issue while ignoring the
other is disingenuous. Good pilots wouldn’t have crashed that plane. There is
a reason that airline pilots in the US must have 1500 flight hours before
being allowed in the right seat; there is a reason that airliner crashes in
the US are so exceedingly rare. The 737 Max incident revealed plenty about
Boeing and system design, but it also shined a light on the effects of
substandard pilot qualification in places like Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Considering the US flew the 737 Max vastly more than anyone else, a broken
airplane would have statistically resulted in a US crash, yet the two crashes
we did have were with airlines from countries with debatable pilot
qualification processes. Attempting to obscure the cockpit voice recorders
from public view and giving them to France (home of Airbus it might be added,)
means that Ethiopia had something to hide regarding their pilots’ actions. If
it was clearly 100% “Boeing’s fault,” then Ethiopia would want all data
surrounding the crash to be on the front page of every newspaper if only to
bolster their case that their pilots weren’t at fault. But instead, they hide
the data. Why hide supposedly exculpatory evidence? Because it wasn’t
exculpatory at all.

I get it, MCAS bad. But those passengers would still be alive if it weren’t
for bad pilots. Given that Ethiopian Airlines is a crown jewel of the country
and a vital marketing tool of the country, it’s clear why they wanted to hide
any hint that pilots of the flag carrier were questionable.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
The pilot's did not perform ideally, but to say their actions were outside of
what could be reasonably expected is foolish. This is a system for which they
received no training, acts in an obscure and intermittent fashion, and is
accompanied by a slew of cabin warnings.

Furthermore, with the overspeed and extreme trim, the trim wheel was likely
inoperable, or else required so much force that the pilots reasonably thought
it was inoperable. Due to the overspeed, the pilots were in an impossible
situation where they concluded they needed electronic trim control while also
knowing that this system was threatening their demise.

To place blame on the pilots is to plan to fail.

~~~
HarryHirsch
The pilots did the best they could. They increased airspeed to have at least
some lift despite the excessive mistrim, and they turned electric trim back on
because in the 737-NG autotrim stops when the yoke is pulled. No one told them
about MCAS and how it behaves different from the model that they knew.

~~~
bbojan
I think there is a lot of misinformation in your post.

The pilots didn't follow the airspeed unreliable procedure, and oversped the
aircraft. Maybe it's the best they could do, but definitely not what they were
expected (and trained) to do.

Electric trim is not turned off "when the yoke is pulled" \- it's momentarily
turned off when electric trim thumb switches on the yoke are pressed.

And they switched it back on because they couldn't manually re-trim due to
very high speed that the plane was travelling at that point.

BTW the airplane was a 737 Max, not 737-NG.

~~~
ScottBurson
> BTW the airplane was a 737 Max, not 737-NG.

I believe the parent's point was that they did what would have made sense in
the NG, not realizing it wouldn't have the same result in a Max.

------
swasheck
AA seems to trust the recert process. [http://news.aa.com/news/news-
details/2019/The-Latest-Informa...](http://news.aa.com/news/news-
details/2019/The-Latest-Information-About-737-MAX-Operations/default.aspx)

That would make one of us.

~~~
organsnyder
Given how much they have at stake (they've cancelled ~10k flights so far due
to the grounding), it's hard to perceive them as neutral.

------
cmurf
The corporate spokesperson should be automated. Just have a robot do this job.
It's boilerplate language. It requires no adaptation or creative thinking. And
it'd be no more or less credible if delivered by a robot.

------
the_duke
I wonder if publishing this just to get a headline before everyone else is a
ethical move by the NYT.

Couldn't the publicity conjure a lot of lobbying/political pressure to change
the report?

~~~
Bluestrike2
Possibly, but I don't think there was much of a risk. Boeing already had--
presumably--at least a pretty decent idea about the review's contents by
piecing together hints from document requests and questions or maybe even
someone calling in a favor to get a draft copy. The Joint Authorities
Technical Review (JATR) involved a _lot_ of agencies and personnel from
multiple countries.

On the other hand, that also poses a problem for any attempt to change the
report. There are a _lot_ of iterative copies out there, with both Reuters[0]
and the Times obtaining copies independently. Pressuring the JATR team to
change its findings would leave an absolute _ton_ of fingerprints, and be
instantly obvious once reporters start reviewing a diff of the report.

0\. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-boeing-airplane-
faa/f...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-boeing-airplane-faa/faa-
failed-to-properly-review-737-max-jet-anti-stall-system-jatr-findings-
idUSKBN1WQ0H8)

------
salawat
Nice to see the rest of the world isn't content to let Boeing/the FAA off the
hook. I'm also seeing every indication I was confident would be found back in
March...

Poignant points follow.

>The report found that while the F.A.A. had been made aware of MCAS, “the
information and discussions about MCAS were so fragmented and were delivered
to disconnected groups” that it “was difficult to recognize the impacts and
implications of this system.”

>The task force said it believed that if F.A.A. technical staff had been fully
aware of the details of MCAS, the agency would probably have required
additional scrutiny of the system that might have identified its flaws.

This troubles the crap out of me. I was under the understanding aviation used
a radically different development process specifically designed to avoid this
type of thing. However, this rings of a bad attempt at courting with some sort
of Lean or Agile process methodology. I certainly hope that's not the case,
but I've seen those same exact symptoms when pressure is put on not properly
documenting/analyzing things beyond the bare minimum required by law.

>A broad theme of the report is that the F.A.A. was too focused on the
specifics of the new system and did not put sufficient effort into
understanding its overall impact on the plane. In certification documents that
Boeing submitted to the F.A.A., MCAS was not evaluated as “a complete and
integrated function” on the new plane.

>The report also said Boeing had failed to inform the F.A.A. as the design of
MCAS changed during the plane’s development. A New York Times investigation
revealed that the system changed dramatically during that process, making MCAS
riskier and more powerful, and that key F.A.A. officials were unaware of major
changes to the system.

>The task force said the certification documents that Boeing provided to the
F.A.A. “were not updated during the certification program to reflect the
changes” made to MCAS. It added that two critical documents that describe the
potential dangers of a system like MCAS, the system safety assessment and the
functional hazard assessment, “were not consistently updated.”

These three points are consistent with a regulation scheme where the primary
regulator is no longer the primary driver of the regulation process and is
dependent on the regulated to raise awareness of "there may be issues here."
Active participation of an adversarial regulator is absolutely essential.

>Boeing also failed to thoroughly stress-test the design of MCAS, according to
the report, which found that “the design assumptions were not adequately
reviewed, updated or validated.”

This is straight up unwillingness to test, "Steve says this'll never happen"
cultural attitude. There is always a push against testers to minimize the cost
of their testing as much as possible. This reinforces for me how strong that
pressure really was. The single-event upset testing they did back around June-
ish, while an admittedly highly unlikely occurrence is a textbook bog standard
test case in any aerospace/safety critical design. To not have it accounted
for, is tantamount to heresy from this humble tester's point of view. Lord
only knows what other tests were shot down because everyone else in the
management chain were more interested in getting the plane out the door.

>In addition, the report criticized Boeing for not adequately assessing the
extra effort pilots might have to make to deal with MCAS, and it noted that
Boeing had removed mention of MCAS from a draft of the pilot’s manual. As a
result of that decision, some key F.A.A. officials were not fully aware of
MCAS and were “not in a position to adequately assess training needs,” the
report found.

This and the previous statements w.r.t tests undone, and
documentation/awareness raising failures constitute for me sufficient evidence
of a potentially deliberate regulatory hack. I'm glad we have Attorney's
General conducting a criminal probe in this case. The convenient way the
failures just happen to fall into line and that everything just happened to go
off without any of the people who could have stopped the process of this error
chain from propagating seems to me a bit far-fetched. Accidents happen, yes.
This represented too many disparate failure modes in the process to not have
been the result of a deliberate optimization decision made by someone; and
that decision maker needs to be held to account.

>To address some of these shortcomings, the report recommends that the F.A.A.
update the certification process to allow the agency to be more involved in
the design process early on.

>Overall, the report found fault with the process for certifying a new plane
based on an old design, saying that it “lacks an adequate assessment of how
proposed design changes integrate with existing systems.”

These two points revolve around the grandfathered certification process in
general, which has been a big motivator in terms of disincentivizing designing
new planes. I'm fairly sure that there needs to be a greater threshold of
proof tacked onto a grandfathered design after this point. I understand the
intent to streamline by utilizing already proved design elements, but it is
fairly obvious it invites in design complacency from the ground up as it were,
and encourages the financial side of the house to feel emboldened in attempts
to pressure engineering into skipping large portions of the work needing to be
done.

>It recommended that the F.A.A. confirm that the Max is in fact compliant with
regulations having to do with the plane’s flight guidance system, flight
manual and stall demonstration.

This last point may doom the MAX depending on how accommodating regulators are
willing to be.

Without MCAS, the airframe fails FAR 25.173 from the pilot's point of view.
Period. That is beyond contention at this point. There will need to be a
judgement call with regards to the delta in control forces as to whether or
not a regular pilot, through training alone can be educated to safely
compensate for those longitudinal stability prescriptive behavior divergences.
In the end, it is left to the certifying authorities.

If it were me in that position, with the authority to make a binding
proclamation on it; my answer would be no. Absolutely not.

I've dug into the history of aircraft certification enough to agree with some
of the older school regulators from times before electronics were a given for
flight control systems. We must make flyable planes first. If we let the
viability be compromised by economic factors compensated for by gadget
wizardry, then we're walking down the path where pilots are not "flying" the
plane. This is unacceptable in my eyes. If we are going to put as much trust
in pilots to the point that we lock the occupation behind years of education
and draconian requirements for physiological conditioning and educational
refresh, then the pilot should be as much a design consideration in the flying
of the plane as possible. Which means at a minimum, the pilot needs to be able
to fly the machine with minimum automation functional by virtue of passive
flight characteristics. I'm not against fly-by-wire as a means of control
signal translation to provide common interface for the pilot, mind, but the
computer should not have to be resorted to to mimic passive longitudinal
stability. That is a sin that cannot be pardoned in aerospace design for Civil
transport, and yet we've had more than enough history of attempts to do so to
make it clear it's a bad idea.

First the MD-11, now 737 MAX.

It needs to stop.

~~~
PaulHoule
There is a precedent for "flight envelope protection" for fly-by-wire
airliners, which has been applied to all modern larger airliners except for
the 737. (directly competitive A320, as well as A350, A380, 777, 787, 747-8,
...)

Small problems with the fly-by-wire system on the A320 get found and fixed on
a routine basis. Bigger problems have been found in the past, but how to
manage the risks in this kind of system is well known and that knowledge base
was entirely ignored in the development of the 737 because Boeing couldn't be
bothered to bring the 737 into the 1980s, never mind the 21st century.

~~~
salawat
Given, but flight envelope protection has it's warts too, and I don't wish to
(and probably chose my words poorly to convey my true meaning) turn this into
a Boeing v. Airbus design philosophy flame war.

Where your examples pass my test of acceptable fly-by-wire, is that even in
their most automation crippled state, (direct law), the airframe demonstrates
longitudinal stability, and the automation doesn't induce undesired behavior
detrimental to flying the plane. Thereby it can be thought of as a Hardware
Abstraction Layer between the inputs and the control surfaces that faithfully
represent pilot inputs to output behavior.

Boeing's MCAS fails this sniff test. If the input sensor breaks, it actually
generates dangerous input that actively detracts from the flyability of the
plane. The airframe itself necessitates this dangerous subsystem because
uncorrected, no test pilot would be willing to sign off that it was consistent
with the older 737's handling characteristics.

Just wanted to be clear: I'm not anti-Airbus. I'm anti-"Hey let's automate
this, but do it with minimum scrutiny and reckless levels of awareness
building for the end operator."

Which is what happened with the MAX, and seems like a page torn out of
McDonnell Douglas playbook.

~~~
PaulHoule
It is not Boeing vs airbus, it is the 737 vs all other modern airliners.

FBW on the 7x7 (for x>3) is not that different from Airbus airliners except
Airbus has sidestick controls that are not mechanically connected whereas
Boeings have jokes that are mechanically between the two pilots.

If Boeing used the same flight controls that they use on all post 1970 planes
it would be ok, Airbus has nothing to do with it.

~~~
foldr
>FBW on the 7x7 (for x>3) is not that different

FBW refers simply to the lack of a hydraulic/mechanical connection between the
flight controls and the control surfaces. The 747 has such a connection. Thus,
the 747 is not a FBW aircraft (although I think some control surfaces on the
747-8 may be FBW).

------
outworlder
"In a statement, the Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe said “safety is a core
value for everyone at Boeing,”"

If that were true, such a critical feature would have _redundant sensors_.
There is no reason not to have them except costs. Even more so if one
considers that other sensors ARE redundant, they even feed either the pilot or
co-pilot displays, never both.

~~~
salawat
The costs in this case was $1000000 per airframe sold if Class D simulator
training was required, which resulted in the decision to go with the single
sensor design.

This was discussed in the 60 Minutes Expose.

[https://youtu.be/QytfYyHmxtc](https://youtu.be/QytfYyHmxtc)

------
ilaksh
> The review also said there were signs that Boeing employees who worked on
> behalf of the F.A.A. to certify the Max had at times faced conflicts of
> interest.

LOL. 100% of the time they have a conflict of interest.

But from the article it sounds like they plan to continue with the employees
regulating their own company.

~~~
salawat
If I recall they've restructured things a little.

>[https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/industry-...](https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/industry-
news/boeing-management-restructures-to-improve-safety-oversight.html)

The Engineers now report those concerns to the company Chief Engineer, who
reports to Mullenberg/the CEO. There is also a committee tasked with oversight
and investigation of anonymously submitted concerns.

~~~
ilaksh
So the engineers are not even allowed to report concerns directly to the FAA.

~~~
salawat
Ah. Found the Seattle Times article.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/boein...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/boeings-board-calls-for-revamping-company-structure-in-wake-
of-737-max-crashes/?amp=1)

Relevant pieces:

>The board called for revamping oversight of a controversial program that
delegates Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authority to company engineers
and technical experts, allowing Boeing to help certify its own airplanes as
safe and airworthy.

>That recommendation calls for Boeing experts, known as “authorized
representatives” under the FAA’s Organization Designation Authorization (ODA)
program, to report to a new aviation safety organization within the company,
called Product and Services Safety, rather than to business and program
managers.

So this would be the FAA "blessed" folks reporting to an internal board
separate from sales/business/project management. So technically, yes. The FAA
is not directly in the loop.

>Boeing said the new internal organization would be headed by a vice president
who reports directly to company leadership. It also would be tasked with
overseeing Boeing’s Accident Investigations Team, safety review boards and
investigations of “cases of undue pressure and anonymous product and service
safety concerns raised by employees,” according to the announcement from CEO
Dennis Muilenburg and board members detailing the recommendations.

>The new structure “should increase awareness and reporting of, and
accountability for, safety issues within the company,” Boeing said.

 _cough_ That's an unfortunate acronym... Boeing Accident Investigations Team,
henceforth known as B.A.I.T.

------
DrScientist
The question is: Conspiracy or incompetence?

I normally favour the latter all things being equal.

However in this case, I sense that the battle with Airbus was ( and the key
role of the 737 Max in that ) considered strategic and failure possibly an
existential threat for Boeing and hence the US aviation industry.

~~~
colechristensen
Thinking along those lines isn’t helpful.

Big complex systems fail, sometimes there is a good target to point fingers,
sometimes there isn’t.

Fear of punishment is a really bad way to reduce future failures, and being
satisfied having found somebody to punish makes you stop looking for
systematic issues which caused and will continue to cause failures.

The FAA/Boeing oversight process failed or more correctly happened much too
late (this report being a part of that, post mortem)

~~~
jplayer01
> Thinking along those lines isn’t helpful.

It is though. It isn't enough to have strict regulations. You need to have
regulators that are willing to enforce them and companies that follow them. We
have neither, thus it's time to punish the people who are responsible for not
only what lead to the accidents, but the people who are responsible for the
state of these agencies and companies.

~~~
colechristensen
You do though, air travel is very regulated and incredibly safe, and
definitely is not by default.

Focus on punishing people and one, you teach people to be better at avoiding
punishment and two, you keep punishing new people for doing the same thing
over and over.

~~~
jplayer01
Air travel is very safe and regulated because of behavior that persisted until
recently. It's clear that systemic deviation has happened since the 90s that
is leading to a system that can't be trusted in the same way that it could be
historically. It's just that these are changes in a complex system that take
years to surface as real problems that affect people. As long as financial
incentives are so high that they override regulatory concerns as they do now,
punishment is certainly in order.

It's not the kind of thing where you make a change and planes fall out of the
sky. No, you make small, gradual changes in processes and in safety margins
until at some point in the distant future, planes fail catastrophically as a
direct result of decisions made as an organization 1-3 decades ago. It's the
same set of behaviors that led to the Challenger disaster.

~~~
rootusrootus
> Air travel is very safe and regulated because of behavior that persisted
> until recently

Air travel is very safe because the entire world of aviation has focused on
analysis and improvement rather than infighting and blaming. If anything, I
worry more about how the aviation community worldwide seems to be fragmenting
right now, and the effect that may have on safety going forward.

But then I do read stories about the FAA and EASA still cooperating very
tightly and respectfully, realize most of the infighting is by armchair
quarterbacks on the Internet and the pros are still doing the Right Thing, and
I sleep a little better.

~~~
jplayer01
> Air travel is very safe because the entire world of aviation has focused on
> analysis and improvement rather than infighting and blaming

Except you have one institution, the FAA, and one company, Boeing, who clearly
no longer have a focus on maintaining regulatory processes to keep safety the
main priority. While Boeing is cutting corners everywhere in order to save a
buck, the FAA is looking the other way and letting Boeing do what they want.
This is something that has already had serious consequences, and will continue
to unless there are serious changes on a systemic level _and_ there are
punishments for those who are responsible for allowing these systemic changes
to have occurred.

Also, I don't appreciate your underhanded insult. This isn't the place for it.

~~~
rootusrootus
> Also, I don't appreciate your underhanded insult. This isn't the place for
> it.

Sorry you took that as an insult, it was not intended as such. It's a generic
observation that on places like HN we've collectively lost our shit and
started acting like we are aeronautical engineers. It's actually one of the
big factors that has recently caused me to lose a lot of confidence in the HN
crowd. Thought we were above it. Even in middle age it seems I'm still capable
of wide-eyed naivete.

~~~
salawat
>Sorry you took that as an insult, it was not intended as such. It's a generic
observation that on places like HN we've collectively lost our shit and
started acting like we are aeronautical engineers. It's actually one of the
big factors that has recently caused me to lose a lot of confidence in the HN
crowd. Thought we were above it. Even in middle age it seems I'm still capable
of wide-eyed naivete.

Things are getting a little heated, so I just figured I'd chime in, because
I've unintentionally become a bit of an expert on this.

It is correct that blameless postmortem has been a major contributor to the
culture of aviation safety. I don't necessarily question that culture so much
as the prevailing executive culture at Boeing since the McDonnell Douglas
merger.

[https://www.mymoneyblog.com/boeing-engineer-dream-job-
nightm...](https://www.mymoneyblog.com/boeing-engineer-dream-job-
nightmare.html)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-
bo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-boeing-
engineers-say-relentless-cost-cutting-sacrificed-safety)

In that case, the aviation safety culture is being undermined by executive
pressure, which has been a more recent thing as far as I'm aware from my
aviation history deep dive. Boeing only after the merger showed signs of
trying to "financially engineer" the company into a vessel of shareholder
value growth over and above it's primary mission of making safe, high quality
aircraft.

In regards to >It's a generic observation that on places like HN we've
collectively lost our shit and started acting like we are aeronautical
engineers.

They who grapple with questions and issues of aeronautical engineering, who
run down facts, find evidence, employ sound reasoning to make predictions are,
de facto aeronautics engineers in the sense of people doing tasks normally
being associated with the responsibility of a practicing aeronautical
engineer.

They are not a protected class of people, and anyone willing to pick up the
tools and use them correctly, basically is one. The protected class is a
Professional Engineer (U.S. not sure about anywhere else), who has been
granted authority by the State to sign off on Engineering projects.

The elitism communicated by calling someone out for not being a practitioner
in their day job is not desirable or conducive to fruitful discussion, and is
regularly frowned upon.

One doesn't pop out of the womb an engineer after all, so drawing such lines
only serves to discourage inquisitive minds.

------
techie128
My consumer confidence in civil aviation is shaken. I think there should be a
way to opt out of flying on aircrafts that I deem unsafe. Additionally,
airline and travel websites should be required, by law, to display the safety
record of the airplane that will fly me. Finally, if the airlines pull a bait
and switch at the airport, the airline should be required to put me on a
different flight that meets my aircraft criteria.

~~~
ip26
Every time you buy a ticket, it says what type of plane you'll be on. You
already have this information available to you.

------
markdown
The content of this article is paywalled.

~~~
pdpi
Alternative source of pretty much the same news:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-boeing-airplane-
faa/f...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-boeing-airplane-faa/faa-
failed-to-properly-review-737-max-jet-anti-stall-system-jatr-report-
idUSKBN1WQ0H8)

~~~
markdown
Thanks!

------
visarga
If an article gets published behind a paywall does it still exist?

~~~
tyingq
Here: [https://outline.com/UpA4Gy](https://outline.com/UpA4Gy)

~~~
kiwijamo
That just shows a blurb for Outline on my iPhone.

~~~
dredmorbius
Try reloading. The first request doesn't always work.

Outline had previously blocked (or been blocked by) the NY Times, but now
seems to work.

