
Boeing scrambles to contain fallout from deadly crash - yogi123
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/business/ethiopian-airline-crash.html
======
drunkflanker
As mechanical engineering students at my college, we analyze failures of
engineering ethics in the past to better inform our decisions in the future.
We analyze a number of situations, always the culpability of the engineer is
placed first and foremost to us. Whether legal culpability falls on the
engineer, we are taught that the moral culpability falls on us as the arbiters
of safety. I can already see that the 737 Max failures will be taught 10 years
from now in the ethics classes I currently take.

~~~
speedplane
> As mechanical engineering students at my college, ... always the culpability
> of the engineer is placed first and foremost to us

In college we learned about the engineering & product decisions that led to
the challenger disaster. There's a famous line that is rumored to have been
said at one of the last design meetings before the disaster: "lets take off
our engineering hats and put on your management hats". Personally, I doubt
this sentence was uttered, but even the rumor conveys the point.

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anonymouslambda
Singapore just grounded all their 737 Max flights. Aeromexico and GOL grounded
their 737 Max planes today. Soon we’ll (U.S.) be the only country left flying
these.

~~~
analog31
Today was the first time I ever checked the type of plane on a flight.

~~~
patrickxb
Me too. Seems like [https://seatguru.com](https://seatguru.com) is the best
site for figuring out the type of plane for a flight.

------
Axsuul
On people eschewing their 737 MAX flights, I would argue it's probably even
safer to be on a 737 MAX these next few days since every airline and their
pilots will be on edge with that particular model.

~~~
speedplane
> I would argue it's probably even safer to be on a 737 MAX these next few
> days since every airline and their pilots will be on edge with that
> particular model

You're assuming that being "on edge" is sufficient to prevent a systemic
design flaw. Without a proper investigation, it's not clear that is true at
all.

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liability
Boeing and the FAA no doubt believe they are protecting shareholders by not
grounding the fleet, but they're risking their reputation. If it turns out
that Boeing is at fault, will the American media/industrial complex be able to
keep a lid on it? I doubt it.

~~~
voodooranger
I haven’t seen any evidence that the two Max crashes are related. The first
one was the result of Lion Air flying a plane that was not airworthy because
its AOA sensor was known to be faulty.

There is no information about the cause of the second crash as of yet. You’re
making a claim about the purported alignment of Boeing, the FAA, and the
“American media/industrial complex” (whatever that is) but I’m not aware that
there is such a thing. What do you know that the rest of us don’t?

~~~
liability
You have the wrong standard of proof. Boeing and the FAA should be erroring on
the side of caution, not hiding behind _innocent until proven guilty_.

And in case it's not totally clear, the caution should be for the passengers,
not shareholders.

> _" its AOA sensor was known to be faulty."_

The plane was what, two months old? It should have been non-lethal even if a
troop of rabid baboons was hired to maintain it.

~~~
geofft
I don't think that's actually rational, in the sense of minimizing loss of
life. If you ground all these planes worldwide, what's going to happen? Either
people will take older planes, which are in worse condition, or they'll take
smaller planes / alternative routes, which are more dangerous, or they'll take
cars, which are much more deadly.

Grounding the planes only guarantees saving lives if people stay at home
instead, which isn't going to happen. If Boeing legitimately believes these
planes are still no riskier than older ones (and it sounds like they do and
that they have a reason for that belief), they're _saving_ lives by keeping
them in the air.

~~~
7e
That's not remotely true. The fatality rate from air travel is so low that
taking alternative jets will be much safer. The new plane's selling point is
efficiency so it's used on long haul routes which nobody is going to drive.

------
gojomo
What an awful metaphor – "contain fallout" – for the NYT to use in its current
online headline. ("Boeing Scrambles to Contain Fallout From Deadly Ethiopia
Crash")

It makes it sound like there's some toxic debris Boeing is still racing to
clean-up, when in fact the story is just about financial/reputational after-
effects.

(NYT's original print headline for this story, "Crisis for Boeing As Safety
Worry Grounds New Jet", at least avoided the problematic toxic-debris
implication – though it somewhat implied the jet was grounded everywhere, or
by Boeing, when it's just been grounded by some jurisdictions and carriers.)

~~~
freddie_mercury
> It makes it sound like there's some toxic debris Boeing is still racing to
> clean-up, when it fact the story is just about financial/reputational after-
> effects.

It doesn't make it sound like that at all. I don't think anyone except maybe
you reads it that way. "Fallout" well-understood to mean "effects" or
"results".

~~~
slyfocks
I read it that way as well—-words do have secondary and tertiary connotations,
and any competent journalist knows how to use composition and careful word
choice to more effectively convey a particular narrative.

~~~
freddie_mercury
Here are some other recent NY Times headlines that use the word fallout

Trauma May Have Fallout Over Generations

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far

As Trump Struggles With Helsinki’s Fallout, Congress Faces a New Charge:
Complicity

Inside Uber’s $100,000 Payment to a Hacker, and the Fallout

Nissan and Renault Wrestle With the Fallout From Carlos Ghosn’s Arrest

Fallout is widely used to mean "affect-effects" with no secondary or tertiary
connotations.

I mean....you really thought there was some kind of nuclear disaster in
Helsinki after reading that headline?

~~~
gojomo
All your examples use 'fallout' about abstract occurrences – not situations
where an actual plane-and-jet-fuel crashed-and-exploded from the sky, throwing
some _actual_ 'fallout' across a debris field.

As far as I can tell, clean-up crews are having no notable problems with the
fallout from the crash. Boeing is scrambling to contain the damage to its
business.

~~~
sk5t
Nobody with a full command of the language uses "fallout" to refer to a debris
field. It is most commonly used in the abstract sense, to refer to negative
after-effects, or else in the technical sense, for radioactive pollution.

~~~
gojomo
The 'fallout' isn't the field itself, but toxic stuff that falls from the sky
after an explosion.

No competent headline writer would use that figurative language around an
explosive incident where there might be literal 'fallout'.

(The NYT uses 'fallout' to refer to the literal toxic materials thrown off
from a non-nuclear explosion, as in stories like
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/world/asia/cyanide-
levels...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/world/asia/cyanide-levels-
tianjin-china-explosion.html). And also to refer to toxic off-gassing from
other processes, as in the headline at
[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/us/home-drug-making-
labor...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/us/home-drug-making-laboratories-
expose-children-to-toxic-fallout.html.))

~~~
sk5t
> toxic stuff that falls from the sky

I know... "radioactive pollution."

The public would not expect a civilian airliner to be nuke-powered.

~~~
gojomo
As noted in my examples, the NYT regularly uses 'fallout' to refer to non-
radioactive toxics emerging from explosions and other activities as well. This
usage is also confirmed by many dictionaries.

~~~
sk5t
The Times in the first (and only working) link uses fallout in the
"problematic aftereffects" sense, although I can see how this might be
confusing.

~~~
gojomo
The use of "toxic fallout" in the 1st link is pretty clearly referring to
literal toxic chemicals released. And if you remove the '.' from the 2nd link,
you'll see the same in the "toxic fallout" headline there.

------
jimmy_ruska
Some statistically significant percentage of xbox 360s are starting to red
light for customers running a certain model number. Microsoft assures
customers that there's no need to panic as this particular model has been
reliable for a long time, and it could just be a statistical anomaly.
Microsoft is currently investigating the issue but consumers are weary about
paying full price for a product that might break.

Substitute xbox 360 with PLANE, substitute microsoft with BOEING, substitute
"weary about paying full price" with "dying in a horrible fiery death".

I'm not sure why this is contentious. Be on the safe side and wait for the
investigation to complete in case there's some kind of unexpected single point
of failure caused by mechanical defects.

~~~
speedplane
> xbox 360s are starting to red light ... substitute "weary about paying full
> price" with "dying in a horrible fiery death" ... wait for the investigation
> to complete

Paying full price and dying a fiery death don't exactly seem like comparable
substitutions.

~~~
jimmy_ruska
Planes don't just fall out of the sky. Having 2 major crashed on the same
model could indicate mechanical defects.

When microsoft faced an issue with statistically increased failure rates they
initially played the plausible deniability game (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems#Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems#Response_to_rate_of_failure)
). In fact this is the only response you will ever get from a public company
with short term looking stockholders.

I definitely wouldn't buy that xbox for $300 if I heard similar news reports,
but I sure as hell wouldn't buy that $300 plane ticket and bet my life on
boeing's words.

~~~
speedplane
> I definitely wouldn't buy that xbox for $300 if I heard similar news
> reports, but I sure as hell wouldn't buy that $300 plane ticket and bet my
> life on boeing's words.

I suppose we agree, but just to a different extent. I could conceivably buy an
Xbox knowing that it might crash at some point. But I wouldn't buy an airline
ticket knowing it might crash at some point.

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nostromo
Seems like anti-stall software shouldn't be killing more people than actual
stalls.

When was the last major airline downed by a pilot error stall anyway?

~~~
ralph84
The pilots of both Air France 447 and Colgan Air 3407 managed to stall
perfectly serviceable aircraft in 2009, killing 277 combined.

~~~
nostromo
Exactly my point -- we've just seen 346 people killed by (presumably) an anti-
stall system -- when it's been a decade since we've had the problem this
system is meant to prevent.

~~~
ralph84
If the 737 MAX anti-stall system has a flaw of course it should be fixed.
That's hardly an argument against anti-stall systems in general. The accidents
prevented by anti-stall systems don't make the news.

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droithomme
It does look possible that the anti-stalling software new to these planes has
a bug.

~~~
ethbro
I hesitate to even say something, in deference to the much more knowledgeable
folks working this at the NTSB and sister agencies right now.

But I'd be surprised if it were that simple, especially given the airtime of
all planes flown. Airtime which I'd assume passed largely without incident, as
by now some news agency should have drug up any similar close calls.

If we're doing wild speculation, I'd bet on something like the Tesla battery
punctures (where it turned out high-energy impacts from pointed road debris
were more common than expected).

E.g. a maintenance issue, coupled with a specific configuration, coupled with
pilot behavior

Or, it could just be a poorly maintained plane and a freak accident. But
that's what root cause analysis and black box recordings are designed to
ascertain.

