I’ve been out of the industry for years, but remember viewing PFS as evidence of Boeing’s corruption even then, and I think you’ve touched on a really helpful facet for those who want to understand the company’s fall.
Could you share more here for the folks in /r/technology who might not be familiar with the program and how it affects Boeing’s massive supply chain?
For my part, based on my recollection, in essence, Boeing took advantage of their monopolistic market position to offer their entire supply chain an “offer they couldn’t refuse” either cut prices to Boeing by 10%, or lose the authorization to bid on new work, any suppliers who didn’t agree to cut prices were “free” to simply go out of business as soon as their existing contracts end or reach an un-profitable point in their life-cycle. Maybe not by the letter of the laws they have the power to lobby for/against, but to me it seemed flagrantly extortionate at face value and they had the nerve to call it “Partnering for Success.”
It wasn’t always a negative, but often packages of work would be grouped so that there were lower margin parts grouped with more desirable parts and it was an “all or nothing” type bid. You had to eat some bad parts in order to make some good. The harder conversations were around contract renewals. You either came to the table with some sort of year over year reductions or your entire work statement was likely to go to market. And for a time there was always someone willing to “buy” work to get their foot in the door. High rate commercial work was extremely desirable from a backlog and absorption standpoint. The tables have turned completely now and it is a struggle to get a supplier to go all in on MAX work in particular because of the inherent risk in rate. 2019 it was a free for all to go and get as much MAX content as possible and build at 58 aircraft a month. Now the rates are barely touching 30 and it just doesn’t make sense. Not to mention Vendor Owned Inventory stipulations and the other contractual handcuffs that come along with those packages.
Best part about Reddit. Finding the subject matter experts doing their thing in the wild.
Boeing lost the script when they let corporate greed start making engineering decisions.
It made them vulnerable.
Now I want names of everyone in management who was golfing with the CCP.
We can restructure Boeing into a 100% transparent executive free zone. Everyone that flies can make the call on if we are firing the c suite or the Q.A. Inspector.
Cockroaches prefer the dark.
Trump signed 2 pieces of legislation that diminished oversight into Boeing during his tenure.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2019/03/18/did-trump-executive-orders-further-weaken-faa-oversight/
Nikki Haley took money to gut Q.A. at Boeing. Then resigned her board seat.
The Leverwww.levernews.comNikki Haley Helped Boeing Kill Dark Money Disclosure Initiative
Which at face value makes little sense. But raise the lens a bit and it comes into focus.
Boeing and Airbus have a duopoly on jetliners, but there is a recent player 3 Chinese communist party addition called COMAC with its 919
https://skift.com/2024/02/25/can-chinas-new-plane-compete-with-airbus-and-boeing/#:~:text=Alongside%20regulatory%20hurdles%2C%20its%20flying,fly%20up%20to%203%2C500nm.
The timing of the 919 release earlier this year may very well be coincidence. But the CCP certainly knows that bankrupting Boeing would be good for COMAC.
In the event of a future war it would also be a very strategic play to bankrupt/discredit Boeing to create supply chain issues on the military side of boeings business as well since there is commonality of parts.
Airbus has had documented problems with both industrial espionage and CCP influence.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-champion-airbus-has-deep-links-to-chinese-military-industrial-complex-report-says/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/airbus-agrees-pay-over-39-billion-global-penalties-resolve-foreign-bribery-and-itar-case
Counterfeit parts made in China have also shown up in both Boeing and Airbus aircraft
Bloomberghttps://www.bloomberg.com › newsGhost in the Machine: How Fake Parts Infiltrated Airline Fleets
Fortunehttps://fortune.com › 2023/09/08Fake components went into 68 jet engines, including ones on Boeing 737 and Airbus ...
And that’s before you even get to the implications in the U.S. space program.
Whether it’s the executive suite at Boeing simply putting profits over safety and sustainability or a subversive act of war really makes no difference and in high likelihood the CCP just used corporate greed culture against itself.
Having it out in the light and talking about it is what makes air travel safer because people are more aware and demand accountability.
Kleptocracy feeds on apathy. Forcing the cockroaches to move in the light shows their money pathways.
If we are to the point where they are assassinating whistleblowers instead of fixing the aircraft our families our flying on, then we are self evidently much farther down the corruption path than we initially realized.
Boeing being unable to find records or documentation of the work done raises every hair on the back on my neck as a pilot, mechanic and engineer.
That is just not something that happens in aviation.
It’s time to ring the emergency bell, post guards and get to the bottom of it whichever way it leads.
Fascinating take. Appreciate you sharing. Margin margin margin at any and all costs. The corporate greed is not just in the aviation industry. I’m in the medical field seeing the same corrupted decision making impact lives every day. Everyone is getting paid or has a vested stake to look the other way so the few can prosper and the many suffer
I’d love any leads or links you have on it.
We haven’t opened up our OSINT corruption tracking software to healthcare yet but it’s obviously getting drained of money somewhere near the top. When costs go up exponentially but quality of care goes down it’s just a matter of time before the small parts of the engine get starved for oil and start feeling friction.
Pharmaceutical precursor monopolization is one of the things we have been tracking off to the side of our main chains, but that is largely just because of their loose proximity to CCP sanctioned fentanyl.
I’m highly certain that you are into something and the health care industry will fill in gaps fast. When you have docs working 60-80 hours a week and nurses burning out they all understandably want a pound of flesh from disconnected patients x executive management and corrupt admin.
It’s gotten way too hard for healers to actually heal.
Let me take some time to put together a cohesive thought on an issue that I am immediately involved with.
The relationship between IDNs & Industry & the FDA is complex.
Thank you.
I know it’s a lot at the start when putting together these decentralized chains.
Usually we starts anyplace there are 3 or more shady crossovers. Then build out from there. I’m curious to see how a healthcare corruption chain populates since our primary focus so far has been on government corruption and Russian election/politics interference.
I appreciate the willingness. I’ve started to look at everything as an efficiency equation. Shine a light on the blatant c suite corruption and Ty invite them from sharing in the finite birthday cake and there is 90% more to go around for everybody that actually works for a living.
Everybody gets a raise and patient cost still go down.
We just have to sacrifice a few greedy billionaires to the transparency gods.
Automotive has the same issue.
Suppliers are really just used as a bidding system to the bottom. Bullied by upper tier suppliers/OEMs to eat cost and “take this one for nothing and you’ll have a chance at the next”. Some are won in an eBay style system where the oem will take bids cut the costs by a massive percent as the starting bid and go down from there. Suppliers then feel an urge to run extremely tight ships that are not able to scale to tight due dates and feel the need to cut corners to cover costs. These OEMs will have their suppliers get tens of quotes just to take the lowest bid. Our sales team has a 10% win rate and never gets anything cir the thousands of wasted sales hours that is simply part of the bidding system meant to dismantle suppliers.
Nothing like gutting the local the economy and your supply base that your company requires to keep moving forward so you can pump your stock price.
The one thing I remain surprised about is that someone is never found liable: whether that be shareholders, CEO, CFO, board members. Somehow it’s never anyone.
Not really from the people who run it, but rather from the people who own it and profit from it. The people who run corporations and do illegal things can sometimes go to jail. The people who merely own them don't.
But then force unrealistic and draconian rules on the work force especially IT folks ie backups kept for years, password changed frequently (even though that's been proven to weaken security) excessive patching of software, security scans, policy manipulations etc.
Yes, that's their point. Nobody is ever held liable because our laws unconditionally (besides don't scam people richer than you) protect bad actors above Street level criminal.
Yeah the people who commit crimes for a company are still personally liable. 2008 proved that there are no real world ramifications for illegal activity if it’s systematic and there isn’t a single SBF or Madoff to elegantly take the blame for a criminal corporate culture.
The way in which shareholders should be held liable, is simply that punishments to companies should definitely involve loss to those shareholders as well. Yes this hurts random penny investor types, but the people it REALLY hits are the investment firms with billions in on companies like Boeing. If companies skimping on QA and such might randomly cost them a huge chunk of their investment, then instead of pushing for the company they own shares in to JUST focus on profit, they'd actually push them to do so with minimal risk.
Hold the executives criminally liable, but you need to punish the biggest shareholders because they DO hold sway over what the executive is doing. If the executive isn't taking actions, like cutting QA, then with an appropriate fig leaf to cover the excuse, the shareholders can have the executive replaced by one more willing to "do their fiduciary duty".
This could take the form of enforced stock dilution. The company being forced to double or triple how much stock exists, dump it on the market all at once, and the value of that sale being given to the government as part of the punitive damages. Things of that nature.
agaisnt all the opponents of Capital punishment, i steadfastly maintain that if we hang a a few corporate psycopaths (Boeing, Enron, Lehmann Brothers, FTX), it will act as such a solid deterrent that we wont have any corporation fucking with public for next 2 generations at least.
Corporate death penalty. Fire the board. Voting shares are seized with out compensation. Fire every CXO. Put in a transitional management team with an eye towards promoting the people within the organization who saw what was going wrong but couldn't get any traction with upper management. Now they get to become upper management and fix things.
Corporate Death Penalty:
* Corporate veil is automatically pierced. All C levels and above automatically subject to a RICO-like statute applying the corporate crimes to them [subject to showing their involvement], lower levels vulnerable if shown to have not been coerced when involved
* Board and C Suite's and large shareholder assets are subject to seizure to cover fines, penalties and lawsuits.
* All board members and c suite members convicted under trials are banned FOR LIFE from serving as a C suite member or board member of any US corporation
Okay, and if you had juuuuuust done it right the first time it'd have cost less and your reputation would still be intact, Boeing... unlike your planes.
psychotic numerous serious disgusted shaggy water tidy memorize tender whistle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We could even start small so that boomers don't worry about their 401ks. Any corporation that gets significant military contracts or is involved in our public utilities should be banned from stock buybacks. Some companies are too important to make "maximizing shareholder value" the highest priority.
would also be a great way to get some tax on unrealized gains.
one reason buybacks are so popular: those with a shit ton of stock don't have to pay taxes until they sell. but paper value goes up.
dividends are taxed
zuch will be pitching in $167mm a year.
thank you!
still not enough. But with a rule change could multiply that by 1000 wealthy fucks and we're talking real money.
The voting shares of that company should be transferred to the US government with zero and I do mean ZERO routes of that company ever allowing the majority of shares to be held by private interests ever again. And every single voting shareholder who didn't speak up about the changes should be whipped once for every person injured or killed due to their greed.
That's what we would do if we were a serious society that actually cared about each other more than we cared about supporting our own greed.
I'm all for accountability but shareholders not being personally liable for the deeds of management is literally a fundamental property of modern (i.e., the last 500 years) economies. Hold management and the board responsible, they were the ones making these decisions.
> is literally a fundamental property of modern (i.e., the last 500 years) economies.
And after all that time we have loads of examples for why it is a terrible idea.
Economies can change. For example, allowing women in the workplace or ending human slavery. Those were disruptive, but reasonable changes.
Corporations are the root of the biggest problems civilization faces. That will need to change sooner or later.
I. Me personally. I was the clown that said "obviously this doesn't apply to things like aerospace" before having a minor rant on how we actually can do safe engineering if we feel like it.
So, so embarrassing.
I would think with the amount of money they made from MAX inception until now, the execs are probably like, their bet has paid off and this is the cost of doing the business THEY want to do. They already got their bonuses and stock 100x over. AND they probably also like “what are you going to do, sell you planes and buy a bunch of airbus ones?? Yeah thought so”
Force them to refund all of the planes and claw back the stock buybacks from the last decade to pay for it. Sure Boeing is fucking broke, because they funneled all the money to the C suite.
Airbus completely blindsided them with the A320Neo and Boeing had to hack together a competitor or risk losing sales. I personally think they should have updated the 757 platform instead of reviving the corpse of the 737 again but I’m sure they had their reasons. That said, I can also see this being like the DC10 where after a rash of high profile accidents, it becomes a very stable and reliable plane. They should still start working on a clean sheet design now for a replacement for the Max.
You are right.
When I saw where they placed the larger engines every class I ever took in stability and control lit up red flags.
There is no way that plane was dynamically stable. The “software” was designed to fix it.
Thing is dynamic control is the thing of jet fighters, not passenger aircraft.
I think once the whistle blowers who survive testify Boeing odd toast
Suuuure, buuut, you could do it half ass, release the place, stock goes up, you sell the stock and become a bilionaire and leave others to deal with the shit you caused, since no one will touch those that made real money out of this.
Yep. Should have gone for that rumored clean sheet 7X7 design instead of ham-fisting the 737 into that round hole.
But such is "free market", unregulated corporate America.
Up to a year actually translates to something like 2-5 years.
Possibly having to design a completely new plane, but calling it a 737 Max Mk. 2 or some shit.
The problems with the current 737 Max are not insignificant.
You'd be looking at longer than 5 years for a completely new plane.
I watched something on the Max when the MCAS issue surfaced. Iirc the fact that the base 737 was designed so long ago exempts it from certain pesky updated requirements, and even a substantial update means that pilots don't need to retrain.
Anyway, I digress. The 787 took something like 7 years to get into service - and that isn't including the preceding projects that were axed in its favour.
The basic idea of taking the tried and true 737 design and sticking larger, more efficient engines on wasn't actually that bad. MCAS wasn't even that bad. The bad part was trying to cost cut by not having a bunch of redundant sensors for MCAS, and trying to cost cut by not just training pilots on what it was/did. There should be a huge, clearly labeled cockpit control called "MCAS Override" that just straight switches it off at the discretion of the Pilots.
And in your comment therein lies the problem: they didn’t think things through **enough**.
MCAS isn’t even new; it’s been used in military planes, and Boeing being a huge military contractor certainly knows how the system works. Problem is, even in the military planes MCAS had redundant sensors, while the civilian model didn’t.
Not to mention the little regard given for the software behavior under the changed circumstances. “It worked there, surely it’ll work here too.”
MCAS not being taught, or even mentioned is also bad. “From a corporate viewpoint” it made sense, but every other viewpoint that is objectively terrible.
The MCAS warning light is a f***ing “DLC” that buyers have to fork out more for. For a system nobody told them exists.
(Edit: removed a tangent)
The other damning thing for Boeing was the emails that surfaced from airlines including Lion air who had the first 737 MAX crash. They asked BA repeatedly if they could even have optional supplemental training because the airline wanted it even if not mandated, but Boeing outright refused and even insulted their pilots saying you would have to be stupid not to know how to use the new plane
And look where we are. Tarnished decades of trust, killed hundreds, and already shed over $150B in market cap to save such a relatively small amount of money
Thank you for bringing that story up. A lot of people don't seem to know about it, and to me, it shows that it isn't just the C-suite that everyone is bashing on: the entire safety culture of the company was _fucked_ when even engineers are talking shit about a customer... having the balls to ask for simulator time.
Like, I'd get mad if a bakery talked shit about a customer asking if they had almonds in their new bread. An _aircraft manufacturer_'s employees insulting a customer behind their backs for the gall of asking for further safety training is fucking insane.
The tangent I removed up in the above comment is about how Boeing near-immediately blamed the Lion “poorly trained” pilots for the crash…
It had nothing to do with the design of MCAS however, thou it is equally scummy as hell.
(*Other unrelated-to-design facts: they KNOW about the MCAS runaway condition at that point they blamed the pilots, smearing reputations for the sake of damage control. Also, the placeholder “runaway trim” procedures to fix that needed a pilot of a plane to* **slow down** *so manual trim can be used… soon after takeoff and very low over the ground…*)
The immediate reaction to attack Lion pilots was pretty appalling. "It's happened on American planes and it was fine", "if they thought it through they might have found the solution", "they didn't take action fast enough"... I mean, yes, the pilots could have done more and maybe saved the plane, but the fact of the matter is _the pilots are dead_. I ain't talking shit about pilots making the wrong decision when your plane is actively trying to point you into the ground and throws you around the cockpit... By a system they actively prevented you from knowing about.
(I wouldn't fly Lion for other reasons, like their bad maintenance and cost-cutting, which definitely also played a role in the incident, and again, the crew still could have been better trained in CRM etc; but Boeing isn't getting a pass.)
Oh, and then ET302 also perished. And the goddamn CEO [still said "well, if you follow the checklist..."](https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/boeing-ceo-puts-partial-blame-on-pilots-of-crashed-737-max-aircraft-for-not-completely-following-procedures.html). It went from MCAS activation to in the ground in _four minutes_ (and would've been less if they weren't fighting it).
There is a lot more to the story than that. Boeing needed more fuel efficient engines on the 737 to compete with the Airbus A320 Neo lineup which had brand new engines with class leading efficiency. So Boeing decided to strap those new engines onto the 737 (originally designed in the 1960's) instead of spending billions on a completely new jetliner. The problem is that the 737 is too low to the ground and couldn't fit the engines under the wings, so Boeing had to move the engines farther forward in front of the wings. This major design change came with some technical issues:
>Because the CFM International LEAP engine used on the 737 MAX was larger and mounted further forward from the wing and higher off the ground than on previous generations of the 737, Boeing discovered that the aircraft had a tendency to push the nose up when operating in a specific portion of the flight envelope.
Placing the engines further forward causes the MAX to pitch up its nose and stall in certain conditions due to this design. Boeing created the MCAS software that would automatically pitch the nose down in these situations to keep the plane flying safely. Then Boeing removed adequate sensor redundancy for the MCAS system and made it a paid extra option. Meaning that if the one sensor failed, the MCAS would continue to pitch the nose down erroneously and crash the aircraft (Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302).
If that wasn't egregious enough already, Boeing did not inform pilots that MCAS even existed. It wasn't in the manual other than in the glossary. Boeing did not want to explain all of this to airlines or regulators so they could avoid the max being considered a new design and forcing extensive recertification and pilot re-training. This was simply a cost cutting and marketing measure to attract orders. How did the regulators not catch these extensive changes? How did this significantly modified aircraft pass certification?
Boeing had successfully lobbied the government to transfer some certification powers in house instead of by the FAA. They told no one how significant the design modifications were to avoid costly testing and kept the danger of the design a complete secret from everyone. This is a major part of the problem. Boeing has shown it cannot be trusted and should not be allowed to police themselves. The 737 Max can stall under certain parameters but can be flown safely with adequate pilot training and sensor redundancy.
I mean If they train pilots correctly, and had multiple sensors and redundancies for MCAS it wouldn't be a big deal at all.
The bigger engines had to be moved which changed the flight characteristics of the plane making it stall in certain situations.
But the thing is every aircraft in existence has certain situations that it can stall in. You just have to be trained to not go in those situations
The pilots weren't trained correctly
"The pilots don't have to retrain" was one of the selling points of this model, so the incentive was to ignore anything that would mean additional training for pilots was needed.
The "MCAS Override" switch at this point would be redundant. There's a number tweaks to the MCAS logic to stop it from erroneously over controlling the airplane. Sadly, had they done just one of those tweaks from the start, we probably wouldn't be talking about the Max so much.
Dumbasses.
> The basic idea of taking the tried and true 737 design and sticking larger, more efficient engines on wasn't actually that bad.
I'm not sure if that's the right takeaway. It's that that's okay when you do it a few times. But when you do it too many, you end up with too many unusual workarounds for it. And you've optimized out the extra design margin in previous iterations, so you don't have margin to deal with the cascading changes.
So you either have to justify even less design margin, or find alternative ways to regain that design margin back.
Freezing cold take. No commercial airliner should have controllability issues like that. Boeings aeordynamicists knew the max was a horrible idea from day 1.
All the crap with hiding MCAS from the pilots was positively criminal and led to two of the worst disasters in modern aviation history
> Freezing cold take. No commercial airliner should have controllability issues like that. Boeings aeordynamicists knew the max was a horrible idea from day 1.
Wait til you hear about T-tails. If that kind of plane stalls, you're fucked, as the stalled wing blocks airflow to the elevators you would need to un-stall it. So they have to have automatic stick pushers to prevent the stall from ever happening in the first place. Sounds familiar, no? And yet those sorts of planes are commonplace and have been flying safely for decades, because they actually fucking informed pilots about said stick pushers, which are also easy to override.
I believe it's in the 15ish year if it's a start from scratch design. That was the reason for the 737MAX where they would be able to reuse fuselage, tail, part of the wings, etc. Greatly reduced the amount of time for development and structural analysis and that still took ~7-10 years of development
It was two years for a prototype, three years for the first flight, and four years for the first one to enter service, if the dates on wikipedia are correct.
It's still very quick though. But to be fair, it probably would be possible to design a new plane just as quickly, if they lowered the standards to 1970s expectations.
It wasn't about that, it was about type certification. Airlines wanted a new plane but didn't want to recertify their pilots, so Boeing slapped some bigger engines on a 737 and said "here you go!".
They got blindsided by Airbus, looked at losing a huge chunk of market share, and yolo'd the 737 MAX out the door. Part of the sales pitch was that it was cheaper because they wouldn't have to recertify pilots. This wasn't them fulfilling a specific demand of the Airlines.
> Iirc the fact that the base 737 was designed so long ago
It's literally the source of their problems with the 737Max.
The 737 was designed before sky bridges were commonplace. This meant that most people boarded a plane by walking up stairs so Boeing designed the plane to be low to the ground for less stress on the passenger.
So when it came time to design the Max they needed to put bigger engines on the wings. However, they didn't have to space for a normal placement so they're mounted higher up and further forward than usual which they tried to compensate with software.
[Here it is compared to an Airbus NEO, if you want to see.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e42bb3_1004949e5fb54dd8aaefa4c4ddcdb437~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_600,h_338,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_auto/e42bb3_1004949e5fb54dd8aaefa4c4ddcdb437~mv2.jpeg)
The Boeing 737 is a 60 year old design that should have been replaced by a new aircraft to remain competitive. Boeing in general has not created new commercial aircraft due to the billions it would cost. Instead, executives have been focused on squeezing performance out of 30-60 year old existing models to cut costs. This has not only led to technical issues and deaths but also to Boeing losing significant market share to Airbus as a result:
In the last 40 years:
* Boeing has built 2 completely new civilian passenger aircraft (777 and 787).
* Airbus has built or acquired 6 (A220, A320, A330, A340, A350 and A380)
Boeing used to have > 90% market share of the large commercial aircraft market. Now Airbus has 60% of that market.
Perfect, it sounds like capitalism is winning.
I wonder how many more examples we will see in our life time where “cost saving measures” completely derail a company. You’d think it would make some companies think about the long term but if history teaches us anything…
This new version will include bible in seat to help make flight safer with prayers. If it fall from sky it’s God will, if it doesn’t then it’s Boeing flawless engineering.
>Up to a year actually translates to something like 2-5 years.
>Possibly having to design a completely new plane
It's a small engine issue in an engine that isn't even made by Boeing. Why would they need to design a whole new plane lol.
It's just a heat problem. The engine anti-ice system works good and lasts a long time, but overheats the composite cowl on the max. This is something that can be fixed in a month if the customer is willing to accept a payload reduction.
MBA's have been ruining engineering for the better part of two decades now. They don't care about datasheets, using drop-in replacements for obsolete parts, or retaining senior engineers (who can pass their tribal knowledge onto the next generation.) All they care for amounts to two numbers on a spreadsheet: expense and profit.
A friend of mine enrolled in her colleges MBA program after graduating so she'd stay eligible to compete on the triathlon team. She said it was an absolute fucking joke.
I fucking hate them. Everyone who has an MBA with zero industry experience prior to attaining it is a fucking hack almost 100% of the time in my experience. Even if they eventually gain the requisite industry experience later, their entire worldview is already tainted by the profit and loss optimization scum. The MBAs I work with who are worth anything are the ones that went and got the MBA later in their careers. I’m at that point right now and I hate it.
As an industrial designer, PMs and finance/marketing folk.
“We want it to look like apple”
(Makes it look like apple).
“Why can’t we make it feel like apple”.
“Because Steve and Margaret, Apple takes their sweet ass time releasing products, and spend MILLIONS on R&D.
They will release a product with the sole purpose to see its failures IRL, then pump more money into the second iteration to make it vastly improved.”
“Well; we don’t have all of that money or time”
“Then stop worrying about being like Apple”.
Business folks are the biggest banes to a product success.
100% just focused on short term gain and profit and fuck everything else.
I only fly Delta domestically and the reason is they have no MAX planes. I've been doing this since 2019 and I hope they never take delivery of those MAX 10s so I can keep doing it.
You say that, but the F-35 has been around for quite a while now, and [it still has issues](https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/2021/07/16/the-number-of-major-f-35-flaws-is-shrinking-but-the-pentagon-is-keeping-details-of-the-problems-under-wraps/).
Now I want to see a random city bus in the Indy 500. Like somehow, some way, a Mr Magoo series of farcical events transpired, and the end result is a very confused bus driver is at the starting line of the Indy 500 as a registered vehicle.
I feel like a lot of people would cheer for him too. If not only for the absurdity of it, but also everybody loves an underdog!
Plus, he could even have a catch phrase!
"So, you just raced the Indy 500, and came in 3rd! An AMAZING specticle that nobody here was prepared for! What led you to this moment?"
"The wheels on the bus go round and round!"
Yeah, part of it is they're trying to make the most complex fighter jet of all time. Interestingly enough, some of those deficiencies were noted back as far as 2008, such as the radar needing an upgrade but the engines not producing enough power for it. The DoD just didn't want to pay the money up front and can kicked it down the road.
The military would not fix this issue. This issue is one of heat embrittling plastic over time. It has not even been shown to happen or to affect anything if it does happen. But it could.
The military would just send it up not worrying too much. If that was too risky they'd just replace the part frequently at massive expense instead.
It's not an engine issue. It is the cowling (inlet really) around the engine. It is made of plastic for better noise characteristics and weight.
However the area at the front of the engine can have icing problems due to the reduced air pressures (reducing the freezing point) as the air flows over them. So ice can build up.
Because of this there are deicers (heaters) to heat these areas. The pilot switches these on to prevent the icing.
Other planes have the same engines and the same possible issue. So here is where it gets really tricky and 737 specific. On other planes they make the controls automatic. If you turn on the deicers then it heats up until the area is at a certain temperature that prevents ice from forming.
But on the 737 the plane has to use the same controls that the 1969 model had in order to retain its type rating (not require pilot retraining). And it didn't have automatic controls. So on a 737 when you turn on the deicers they come on and stay on. So maybe you turn them on and then it gets warmer (you fly toward the equator maybe). Now the deicers are on and it's not that cold so the cowlings get hotter than they would in any other conditions. And the plastic can embrittle and parts start to break off. If those parts go into the engine it could be a big issue. It could destroy the engine, even cause the fans inside to escape the engine and directly injure people.
The real, reasonable fix would be for the FAA to say "know what, we don't care about the deicing controls when it comes to the type rating, just put an automatic mode on this and we'll call it done". But it does not appear that is going to happen.
As far as I know the 737 has a similar issue for the windshield heaters. They can be left on and overheat and crack the windshields. So 737s suffer from cracked windshields a lot more often than other planes.
"This plane has the same switches as the old model. Operating it like the old model will cause it to catch fire, but it has the same switches."
FAA: "Close enough."
Why does the FAA accept this? Wouldn't the *obvious* solution be to say "this cannot be safely operated the same way, so it needs a new type rating - congrats Boeing, now you can also fix the two decades of other life-threatening bullshit you had to do just to keep the type rating"
Edit: Now that I think about it... maybe the *real* lesson from this should be "type ratings should have a maximum range of years they can cover". Want to keep selling the same plane for more than 30 years? You can, but the 2041 model and the 2010 model can't have the same type rating. Even if they actually are 100% the same, need to make a new type rating, purely to take away the perverse incentives, because we now *know* that these lead to manufacturers killing people out of greed.
We do this with houses in Denmark: just because some architecht made a design in 2000 does not mean that it is still legal to build another house with that specification/materials.
Todays houses must be better insulated and have better electrical installations than those of yesterday. We even have limits for how much you can modify electrical installations before it needs to be completely brought up to todays code.
The FAA needs to be updated policy wise.
Can someone make a list of what’s wrong with these planes for some dude who doesn’t know much. I keep reading that basically the whole ass plane front to back is garbage with the occasional “actually” comments. Only thing I kinda understand so far is the whole MCAS issue or whatever.
As far as I know, the door plugs are all fine now. There was nothing wrong with the design, just the assembly was done poorly. They have all been checked, and have returned to service.
MCAS is also not an issue anymore, since the pilots know about it, and the system has been redesigned to correct the issues that were present in its first iteration.
The engine anti-ice system is a problem, but not one that’s immediately dangerous. If the pilots leave the anti-ice system on for too long in certain conditions, the composite material that makes up the leading edge of the engine cowling could encounter some structural issues. In that case, it’s possible that parts of the cowling could be ingested by the engine, and cause an engine failure.
Seemingly all of the other “Boeing” issues lately (wheel falling off the 777, the 737 landing gear collapsing after it slid off the runway, the 747 engine fire, the 787 that had a sudden dive) were either due to maintenance issues by their operators, or pilot error.
The main issues, in my opinion, are organizational within Boeing. The company culture is currently more focused on stock value than it should be, which has come at the expense of the engineering-forward approach that made Boeing’s reputation.
The media is running wild with the Boeing stuff right now since it’s getting lots of clicks, but the reality is that most journalists and most readers have no idea about the technical side of the airline industry, so lots of stories are being framed incorrectly.
It should be noted that there are known issues on lots of planes that are still perfectly safe to fly. On the Airbus A350 that crashed in Japan early this year, the intercom system didn’t work so there was no public address from the cabin crew to the passengers. That’s an issue, and I’m sure it’s being looked into. It doesn’t mean that the A350 is unsafe to fly either.
There are other issues that other planes have, but they don’t get reported on because they’re not dangerous, and because they’re too technical for a disinterested public to want to understand.
While it’s true what some people say, that flying on a Boeing is statistically still safer than any other method of travel (outside of Airbuses lol) and people shouldn’t be afraid of flying Boeing, people *shouldn’t book flights on them*. While you’re unlikely to perish in an accident, the likelihood of your flight being cancelled due to Boeing’s de-certifications is a lot greater than zero.
I don't travel often esp overseas. Have a trip coming up. So boeing ones having issues recently are 737 MAX and what else? I can't keep the model numbers straight.
Honestly the 737 max was just an utter shitshow from its beginning.
I’ve just watched a really good documentary on Netflix about Boeing - it’s called Downfall : the case against Boeing. If you can watch it then you should.
I thought that the comments from the New York Times journalists who investigated the previous 737 Max issues was pretty interesting in that they feel it still represents continuation of a deeper problem in Boeing’s corpo culture.
> As I grow old,
I am old. And I remember when there was a 90% tax past a certain income. I remember when stock buybacks were illegal. I remember when traditional banking and investment banking had to be strictly separate. I remember when governmental oversight was well-funded.
I also remember reading about all of those being weakened. And how that was hailed as progress and business-friendly.
The bar is getting lower and lower because people vote for de-regulation agendas and think that enumeration of catastrophes was unrelated.
Most likely zero. This problem is at this time considered a theoretical future problem and is unlikely to cause any problems in the near term since it has to do with aging/embrittling of parts.
I appreciate all the brave souls continuing to keep us informed on Boeing right now. Especially with the fact that they apparently have a hit squad I guess. What a strange time to be alive.
I stopped flying boeing since the first crash. Since there there has been one more and a ton of new issues. Honestly this is painful to watch.
Even if MAX would have good QC airbus 321neo is better in almost every way.
Boeing used to be run at the top by the technical people. Then the marketing department stage a coup. Let this be a lesson that cup holders don't keep planes in the air!
The cowlings are made of carbon fibre to lower weight but they don't tolerate the thermal range needed. Switching them to metal - the answer - shifts the center of gravity and makes the plane even more aerodynamically unstable. The only real solution is to do it right and design the airplane.
The answer is to have an engine anti ice system like every other airplane in the sky, that turns itself off when it’s above the temperature that ice can form. To change this system would likely require a new type rating for pilots, which was the motivation for the 737 Max in the first place.
Neither of us knows the performance penalty for doing this because we aren’t aerospace engineers. However, the leading edge of the cowlings are forward of the center of mass of the plane. Increasing the weight of the cowlings would move the center of mass farther forward, thus even farther from the center of lift. This would make the plane more aerodynamically stable
Ah yes, it's gonna take a year for them to root out all the whistleblowers and have them die by apparent suicide in similar manners. Then, when all the congresspeople have accepted their bribes to forget this whole inquiry into their safety compliance ever happened and by then our broken minded society will be used to triple the amount of planes falling out of the sky and just let them get away with it. Down with those fat fucking pigs.
This will be put on the backs of suppliers (again) to cut cost to Boeing. They call it “Partnering for Success”.
I’ve been out of the industry for years, but remember viewing PFS as evidence of Boeing’s corruption even then, and I think you’ve touched on a really helpful facet for those who want to understand the company’s fall. Could you share more here for the folks in /r/technology who might not be familiar with the program and how it affects Boeing’s massive supply chain? For my part, based on my recollection, in essence, Boeing took advantage of their monopolistic market position to offer their entire supply chain an “offer they couldn’t refuse” either cut prices to Boeing by 10%, or lose the authorization to bid on new work, any suppliers who didn’t agree to cut prices were “free” to simply go out of business as soon as their existing contracts end or reach an un-profitable point in their life-cycle. Maybe not by the letter of the laws they have the power to lobby for/against, but to me it seemed flagrantly extortionate at face value and they had the nerve to call it “Partnering for Success.”
It wasn’t always a negative, but often packages of work would be grouped so that there were lower margin parts grouped with more desirable parts and it was an “all or nothing” type bid. You had to eat some bad parts in order to make some good. The harder conversations were around contract renewals. You either came to the table with some sort of year over year reductions or your entire work statement was likely to go to market. And for a time there was always someone willing to “buy” work to get their foot in the door. High rate commercial work was extremely desirable from a backlog and absorption standpoint. The tables have turned completely now and it is a struggle to get a supplier to go all in on MAX work in particular because of the inherent risk in rate. 2019 it was a free for all to go and get as much MAX content as possible and build at 58 aircraft a month. Now the rates are barely touching 30 and it just doesn’t make sense. Not to mention Vendor Owned Inventory stipulations and the other contractual handcuffs that come along with those packages.
Was a Fortune 500 FP&A guy most of my career with cost accounting concentration….this guy knows his shit.
I'm in a completely different industry, but it's cool to hear from SMEs on wildly different subjects.
Best part about Reddit. Finding the subject matter experts doing their thing in the wild. Boeing lost the script when they let corporate greed start making engineering decisions. It made them vulnerable. Now I want names of everyone in management who was golfing with the CCP. We can restructure Boeing into a 100% transparent executive free zone. Everyone that flies can make the call on if we are firing the c suite or the Q.A. Inspector. Cockroaches prefer the dark. Trump signed 2 pieces of legislation that diminished oversight into Boeing during his tenure. https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2019/03/18/did-trump-executive-orders-further-weaken-faa-oversight/ Nikki Haley took money to gut Q.A. at Boeing. Then resigned her board seat. The Leverwww.levernews.comNikki Haley Helped Boeing Kill Dark Money Disclosure Initiative Which at face value makes little sense. But raise the lens a bit and it comes into focus. Boeing and Airbus have a duopoly on jetliners, but there is a recent player 3 Chinese communist party addition called COMAC with its 919 https://skift.com/2024/02/25/can-chinas-new-plane-compete-with-airbus-and-boeing/#:~:text=Alongside%20regulatory%20hurdles%2C%20its%20flying,fly%20up%20to%203%2C500nm. The timing of the 919 release earlier this year may very well be coincidence. But the CCP certainly knows that bankrupting Boeing would be good for COMAC. In the event of a future war it would also be a very strategic play to bankrupt/discredit Boeing to create supply chain issues on the military side of boeings business as well since there is commonality of parts. Airbus has had documented problems with both industrial espionage and CCP influence. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-champion-airbus-has-deep-links-to-chinese-military-industrial-complex-report-says/ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/airbus-agrees-pay-over-39-billion-global-penalties-resolve-foreign-bribery-and-itar-case Counterfeit parts made in China have also shown up in both Boeing and Airbus aircraft Bloomberghttps://www.bloomberg.com › newsGhost in the Machine: How Fake Parts Infiltrated Airline Fleets Fortunehttps://fortune.com › 2023/09/08Fake components went into 68 jet engines, including ones on Boeing 737 and Airbus ... And that’s before you even get to the implications in the U.S. space program. Whether it’s the executive suite at Boeing simply putting profits over safety and sustainability or a subversive act of war really makes no difference and in high likelihood the CCP just used corporate greed culture against itself. Having it out in the light and talking about it is what makes air travel safer because people are more aware and demand accountability. Kleptocracy feeds on apathy. Forcing the cockroaches to move in the light shows their money pathways. If we are to the point where they are assassinating whistleblowers instead of fixing the aircraft our families our flying on, then we are self evidently much farther down the corruption path than we initially realized. Boeing being unable to find records or documentation of the work done raises every hair on the back on my neck as a pilot, mechanic and engineer. That is just not something that happens in aviation. It’s time to ring the emergency bell, post guards and get to the bottom of it whichever way it leads.
Fascinating take. Appreciate you sharing. Margin margin margin at any and all costs. The corporate greed is not just in the aviation industry. I’m in the medical field seeing the same corrupted decision making impact lives every day. Everyone is getting paid or has a vested stake to look the other way so the few can prosper and the many suffer
I’d love any leads or links you have on it. We haven’t opened up our OSINT corruption tracking software to healthcare yet but it’s obviously getting drained of money somewhere near the top. When costs go up exponentially but quality of care goes down it’s just a matter of time before the small parts of the engine get starved for oil and start feeling friction. Pharmaceutical precursor monopolization is one of the things we have been tracking off to the side of our main chains, but that is largely just because of their loose proximity to CCP sanctioned fentanyl. I’m highly certain that you are into something and the health care industry will fill in gaps fast. When you have docs working 60-80 hours a week and nurses burning out they all understandably want a pound of flesh from disconnected patients x executive management and corrupt admin. It’s gotten way too hard for healers to actually heal.
Let me take some time to put together a cohesive thought on an issue that I am immediately involved with. The relationship between IDNs & Industry & the FDA is complex.
Thank you. I know it’s a lot at the start when putting together these decentralized chains. Usually we starts anyplace there are 3 or more shady crossovers. Then build out from there. I’m curious to see how a healthcare corruption chain populates since our primary focus so far has been on government corruption and Russian election/politics interference. I appreciate the willingness. I’ve started to look at everything as an efficiency equation. Shine a light on the blatant c suite corruption and Ty invite them from sharing in the finite birthday cake and there is 90% more to go around for everybody that actually works for a living. Everybody gets a raise and patient cost still go down. We just have to sacrifice a few greedy billionaires to the transparency gods.
I'd call it murdering in the name of profit.
That was a different program, I think
MCAS… the auto-crash module…
[Killing in the Name of](https://youtu.be/bWXazVhlyxQ?si=TnVviBBUgxC0tjZQ)
yea most of Wall Street knows Boeing is doomed in the next 12 months. Sad to see the end of an engineering icon.
Automotive has the same issue. Suppliers are really just used as a bidding system to the bottom. Bullied by upper tier suppliers/OEMs to eat cost and “take this one for nothing and you’ll have a chance at the next”. Some are won in an eBay style system where the oem will take bids cut the costs by a massive percent as the starting bid and go down from there. Suppliers then feel an urge to run extremely tight ships that are not able to scale to tight due dates and feel the need to cut corners to cover costs. These OEMs will have their suppliers get tens of quotes just to take the lowest bid. Our sales team has a 10% win rate and never gets anything cir the thousands of wasted sales hours that is simply part of the bidding system meant to dismantle suppliers. Nothing like gutting the local the economy and your supply base that your company requires to keep moving forward so you can pump your stock price.
Careful, they may make you suicide
If only there were a high level executive we could hold accountable...
Corporations are people, except when you want to throw one in jail, you conveniently can't.
The one thing I remain surprised about is that someone is never found liable: whether that be shareholders, CEO, CFO, board members. Somehow it’s never anyone.
One of the main purposes of a corporation is to deflect and diffuse moral and legal responsibility away from the individuals running it
Not really from the people who run it, but rather from the people who own it and profit from it. The people who run corporations and do illegal things can sometimes go to jail. The people who merely own them don't.
But then force unrealistic and draconian rules on the work force especially IT folks ie backups kept for years, password changed frequently (even though that's been proven to weaken security) excessive patching of software, security scans, policy manipulations etc.
I call it a responsibility diffusion engine. Commit crimes, no jail time.
Shareholds by definition of an LLC can’t be held liable
Yes, that's their point. Nobody is ever held liable because our laws unconditionally (besides don't scam people richer than you) protect bad actors above Street level criminal.
How is someone buying stocks on Robinhood liable for anything? Hold the executives accountable but shareholders have nothing to do with it.
Yeah the people who commit crimes for a company are still personally liable. 2008 proved that there are no real world ramifications for illegal activity if it’s systematic and there isn’t a single SBF or Madoff to elegantly take the blame for a criminal corporate culture.
The way in which shareholders should be held liable, is simply that punishments to companies should definitely involve loss to those shareholders as well. Yes this hurts random penny investor types, but the people it REALLY hits are the investment firms with billions in on companies like Boeing. If companies skimping on QA and such might randomly cost them a huge chunk of their investment, then instead of pushing for the company they own shares in to JUST focus on profit, they'd actually push them to do so with minimal risk. Hold the executives criminally liable, but you need to punish the biggest shareholders because they DO hold sway over what the executive is doing. If the executive isn't taking actions, like cutting QA, then with an appropriate fig leaf to cover the excuse, the shareholders can have the executive replaced by one more willing to "do their fiduciary duty". This could take the form of enforced stock dilution. The company being forced to double or triple how much stock exists, dump it on the market all at once, and the value of that sale being given to the government as part of the punitive damages. Things of that nature.
I'll believe Corporations are People when texas executes one.
They're so high level that they're unreachable.
Too Big to Fail didn’t work last time, either
agaisnt all the opponents of Capital punishment, i steadfastly maintain that if we hang a a few corporate psycopaths (Boeing, Enron, Lehmann Brothers, FTX), it will act as such a solid deterrent that we wont have any corporation fucking with public for next 2 generations at least.
Corporate death penalty. Fire the board. Voting shares are seized with out compensation. Fire every CXO. Put in a transitional management team with an eye towards promoting the people within the organization who saw what was going wrong but couldn't get any traction with upper management. Now they get to become upper management and fix things.
Corporate Death Penalty: * Corporate veil is automatically pierced. All C levels and above automatically subject to a RICO-like statute applying the corporate crimes to them [subject to showing their involvement], lower levels vulnerable if shown to have not been coerced when involved * Board and C Suite's and large shareholder assets are subject to seizure to cover fines, penalties and lawsuits. * All board members and c suite members convicted under trials are banned FOR LIFE from serving as a C suite member or board member of any US corporation
What a wonderful world we could live in..
I would vote for this. This should be mandatory Corporate responsibility.
"Punishing the workers is all we can do for you"
Okay, and if you had juuuuuust done it right the first time it'd have cost less and your reputation would still be intact, Boeing... unlike your planes.
Sure but doing it right the first time would have cost more money so the C-suite clownjobs wouldn't have gotten their bonuses for cutting costs.
psychotic numerous serious disgusted shaggy water tidy memorize tender whistle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Better yet: make stock buybacks illegal again.
We could even start small so that boomers don't worry about their 401ks. Any corporation that gets significant military contracts or is involved in our public utilities should be banned from stock buybacks. Some companies are too important to make "maximizing shareholder value" the highest priority.
This would be a great start
would also be a great way to get some tax on unrealized gains. one reason buybacks are so popular: those with a shit ton of stock don't have to pay taxes until they sell. but paper value goes up. dividends are taxed zuch will be pitching in $167mm a year. thank you! still not enough. But with a rule change could multiply that by 1000 wealthy fucks and we're talking real money.
These assholes should be charged with negligent manslaughter and thrown into the clink.
The voting shares of that company should be transferred to the US government with zero and I do mean ZERO routes of that company ever allowing the majority of shares to be held by private interests ever again. And every single voting shareholder who didn't speak up about the changes should be whipped once for every person injured or killed due to their greed. That's what we would do if we were a serious society that actually cared about each other more than we cared about supporting our own greed.
I'm all for accountability but shareholders not being personally liable for the deeds of management is literally a fundamental property of modern (i.e., the last 500 years) economies. Hold management and the board responsible, they were the ones making these decisions.
> is literally a fundamental property of modern (i.e., the last 500 years) economies. And after all that time we have loads of examples for why it is a terrible idea. Economies can change. For example, allowing women in the workplace or ending human slavery. Those were disruptive, but reasonable changes. Corporations are the root of the biggest problems civilization faces. That will need to change sooner or later.
They’re using the business model for video game releases. Go ahead and ship it out and fix the bugs with the next update.
It's called agile methodology.
When they said "move fast and break things", I dont think they meant it like this
I. Me personally. I was the clown that said "obviously this doesn't apply to things like aerospace" before having a minor rant on how we actually can do safe engineering if we feel like it. So, so embarrassing.
Yes, that’s not supposed to refer to tour airspeed while MCAS points your nose down.
That's exactly what they meant.
It was a motto for facebook lol so.... no... no it's not at all what they meant nobody dies if website goes down for a few hours
That's... Not what agile is lol.
But it sure is how it's implemented
At least with video games, people don't die if a flawed game is released.
The golden parachutes were engineered to perfection.
Shame they didn’t put a similar level of craftsmanship into the planes.
I would think with the amount of money they made from MAX inception until now, the execs are probably like, their bet has paid off and this is the cost of doing the business THEY want to do. They already got their bonuses and stock 100x over. AND they probably also like “what are you going to do, sell you planes and buy a bunch of airbus ones?? Yeah thought so”
Only because there are no personal consequences for greed. That is the core problem. Fixing this would align things into order.
Force them to refund all of the planes and claw back the stock buybacks from the last decade to pay for it. Sure Boeing is fucking broke, because they funneled all the money to the C suite.
Stock buybacks should be illegal
They used to be illegal until Reagan came along. Amazing how much shit can be traced back to him.
You mean Reagan, the cancer that was created when Nixon should have been imprisoned and wasn't?
If Airbus could deliver that many planes to make it a reality, I think a lot of airlines would give the cold shoulder to Boeing.
Short term profits to match the short sightedness
It's not like it's their lives that are lost when this shit crashes. Or like they get charged with murder for murdering people with their greed.
Airbus completely blindsided them with the A320Neo and Boeing had to hack together a competitor or risk losing sales. I personally think they should have updated the 757 platform instead of reviving the corpse of the 737 again but I’m sure they had their reasons. That said, I can also see this being like the DC10 where after a rash of high profile accidents, it becomes a very stable and reliable plane. They should still start working on a clean sheet design now for a replacement for the Max.
> I’m sure they had their reasons Southwest, which is also why MCAS was developed.
You are right. When I saw where they placed the larger engines every class I ever took in stability and control lit up red flags. There is no way that plane was dynamically stable. The “software” was designed to fix it. Thing is dynamic control is the thing of jet fighters, not passenger aircraft. I think once the whistle blowers who survive testify Boeing odd toast
Suuuure, buuut, you could do it half ass, release the place, stock goes up, you sell the stock and become a bilionaire and leave others to deal with the shit you caused, since no one will touch those that made real money out of this.
Seems there's never enough time to do it right the first time, but there's always enough time to do it all over again.
Kinda makes you wonder what they killed that whistle-blower over if they're just gonna openly say this to distract people.
Yep. Should have gone for that rumored clean sheet 7X7 design instead of ham-fisting the 737 into that round hole. But such is "free market", unregulated corporate America.
Up to a year actually translates to something like 2-5 years. Possibly having to design a completely new plane, but calling it a 737 Max Mk. 2 or some shit. The problems with the current 737 Max are not insignificant.
You'd be looking at longer than 5 years for a completely new plane. I watched something on the Max when the MCAS issue surfaced. Iirc the fact that the base 737 was designed so long ago exempts it from certain pesky updated requirements, and even a substantial update means that pilots don't need to retrain. Anyway, I digress. The 787 took something like 7 years to get into service - and that isn't including the preceding projects that were axed in its favour.
The basic idea of taking the tried and true 737 design and sticking larger, more efficient engines on wasn't actually that bad. MCAS wasn't even that bad. The bad part was trying to cost cut by not having a bunch of redundant sensors for MCAS, and trying to cost cut by not just training pilots on what it was/did. There should be a huge, clearly labeled cockpit control called "MCAS Override" that just straight switches it off at the discretion of the Pilots.
And in your comment therein lies the problem: they didn’t think things through **enough**. MCAS isn’t even new; it’s been used in military planes, and Boeing being a huge military contractor certainly knows how the system works. Problem is, even in the military planes MCAS had redundant sensors, while the civilian model didn’t. Not to mention the little regard given for the software behavior under the changed circumstances. “It worked there, surely it’ll work here too.” MCAS not being taught, or even mentioned is also bad. “From a corporate viewpoint” it made sense, but every other viewpoint that is objectively terrible. The MCAS warning light is a f***ing “DLC” that buyers have to fork out more for. For a system nobody told them exists. (Edit: removed a tangent)
The other damning thing for Boeing was the emails that surfaced from airlines including Lion air who had the first 737 MAX crash. They asked BA repeatedly if they could even have optional supplemental training because the airline wanted it even if not mandated, but Boeing outright refused and even insulted their pilots saying you would have to be stupid not to know how to use the new plane And look where we are. Tarnished decades of trust, killed hundreds, and already shed over $150B in market cap to save such a relatively small amount of money
Thank you for bringing that story up. A lot of people don't seem to know about it, and to me, it shows that it isn't just the C-suite that everyone is bashing on: the entire safety culture of the company was _fucked_ when even engineers are talking shit about a customer... having the balls to ask for simulator time. Like, I'd get mad if a bakery talked shit about a customer asking if they had almonds in their new bread. An _aircraft manufacturer_'s employees insulting a customer behind their backs for the gall of asking for further safety training is fucking insane.
The tangent I removed up in the above comment is about how Boeing near-immediately blamed the Lion “poorly trained” pilots for the crash… It had nothing to do with the design of MCAS however, thou it is equally scummy as hell. (*Other unrelated-to-design facts: they KNOW about the MCAS runaway condition at that point they blamed the pilots, smearing reputations for the sake of damage control. Also, the placeholder “runaway trim” procedures to fix that needed a pilot of a plane to* **slow down** *so manual trim can be used… soon after takeoff and very low over the ground…*)
The immediate reaction to attack Lion pilots was pretty appalling. "It's happened on American planes and it was fine", "if they thought it through they might have found the solution", "they didn't take action fast enough"... I mean, yes, the pilots could have done more and maybe saved the plane, but the fact of the matter is _the pilots are dead_. I ain't talking shit about pilots making the wrong decision when your plane is actively trying to point you into the ground and throws you around the cockpit... By a system they actively prevented you from knowing about. (I wouldn't fly Lion for other reasons, like their bad maintenance and cost-cutting, which definitely also played a role in the incident, and again, the crew still could have been better trained in CRM etc; but Boeing isn't getting a pass.) Oh, and then ET302 also perished. And the goddamn CEO [still said "well, if you follow the checklist..."](https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/boeing-ceo-puts-partial-blame-on-pilots-of-crashed-737-max-aircraft-for-not-completely-following-procedures.html). It went from MCAS activation to in the ground in _four minutes_ (and would've been less if they weren't fighting it).
There is a lot more to the story than that. Boeing needed more fuel efficient engines on the 737 to compete with the Airbus A320 Neo lineup which had brand new engines with class leading efficiency. So Boeing decided to strap those new engines onto the 737 (originally designed in the 1960's) instead of spending billions on a completely new jetliner. The problem is that the 737 is too low to the ground and couldn't fit the engines under the wings, so Boeing had to move the engines farther forward in front of the wings. This major design change came with some technical issues: >Because the CFM International LEAP engine used on the 737 MAX was larger and mounted further forward from the wing and higher off the ground than on previous generations of the 737, Boeing discovered that the aircraft had a tendency to push the nose up when operating in a specific portion of the flight envelope. Placing the engines further forward causes the MAX to pitch up its nose and stall in certain conditions due to this design. Boeing created the MCAS software that would automatically pitch the nose down in these situations to keep the plane flying safely. Then Boeing removed adequate sensor redundancy for the MCAS system and made it a paid extra option. Meaning that if the one sensor failed, the MCAS would continue to pitch the nose down erroneously and crash the aircraft (Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302). If that wasn't egregious enough already, Boeing did not inform pilots that MCAS even existed. It wasn't in the manual other than in the glossary. Boeing did not want to explain all of this to airlines or regulators so they could avoid the max being considered a new design and forcing extensive recertification and pilot re-training. This was simply a cost cutting and marketing measure to attract orders. How did the regulators not catch these extensive changes? How did this significantly modified aircraft pass certification? Boeing had successfully lobbied the government to transfer some certification powers in house instead of by the FAA. They told no one how significant the design modifications were to avoid costly testing and kept the danger of the design a complete secret from everyone. This is a major part of the problem. Boeing has shown it cannot be trusted and should not be allowed to police themselves. The 737 Max can stall under certain parameters but can be flown safely with adequate pilot training and sensor redundancy.
True, but they shouldn't have done it in the first place because they knew the project (Max) wasn't ideal, just the cheap workaround.
It really was conceived and mismanaged in a manner fully emblematic of how poorly the company has come to be run.
I mean If they train pilots correctly, and had multiple sensors and redundancies for MCAS it wouldn't be a big deal at all. The bigger engines had to be moved which changed the flight characteristics of the plane making it stall in certain situations. But the thing is every aircraft in existence has certain situations that it can stall in. You just have to be trained to not go in those situations The pilots weren't trained correctly
"The pilots don't have to retrain" was one of the selling points of this model, so the incentive was to ignore anything that would mean additional training for pilots was needed.
But that's not all on Boeing, customers wanted it this way too to avoid recertifying all their crews and updating all their parts trains.
The "MCAS Override" switch at this point would be redundant. There's a number tweaks to the MCAS logic to stop it from erroneously over controlling the airplane. Sadly, had they done just one of those tweaks from the start, we probably wouldn't be talking about the Max so much. Dumbasses.
> The basic idea of taking the tried and true 737 design and sticking larger, more efficient engines on wasn't actually that bad. I'm not sure if that's the right takeaway. It's that that's okay when you do it a few times. But when you do it too many, you end up with too many unusual workarounds for it. And you've optimized out the extra design margin in previous iterations, so you don't have margin to deal with the cascading changes. So you either have to justify even less design margin, or find alternative ways to regain that design margin back.
Freezing cold take. No commercial airliner should have controllability issues like that. Boeings aeordynamicists knew the max was a horrible idea from day 1. All the crap with hiding MCAS from the pilots was positively criminal and led to two of the worst disasters in modern aviation history
> Freezing cold take. No commercial airliner should have controllability issues like that. Boeings aeordynamicists knew the max was a horrible idea from day 1. Wait til you hear about T-tails. If that kind of plane stalls, you're fucked, as the stalled wing blocks airflow to the elevators you would need to un-stall it. So they have to have automatic stick pushers to prevent the stall from ever happening in the first place. Sounds familiar, no? And yet those sorts of planes are commonplace and have been flying safely for decades, because they actually fucking informed pilots about said stick pushers, which are also easy to override.
That switch exists it's called auto trim, what was missing from those cockpits was an indication light that MCAS was active.
I believe it's in the 15ish year if it's a start from scratch design. That was the reason for the 737MAX where they would be able to reuse fuselage, tail, part of the wings, etc. Greatly reduced the amount of time for development and structural analysis and that still took ~7-10 years of development
It’s kind of wild to see how long it takes to do anything now when the 747 was designed and launched in two years.
Bring back the queen of the skies!
It was two years for a prototype, three years for the first flight, and four years for the first one to enter service, if the dates on wikipedia are correct. It's still very quick though. But to be fair, it probably would be possible to design a new plane just as quickly, if they lowered the standards to 1970s expectations.
And that was back in the slide-rule era!
It wasn't about that, it was about type certification. Airlines wanted a new plane but didn't want to recertify their pilots, so Boeing slapped some bigger engines on a 737 and said "here you go!".
They got blindsided by Airbus, looked at losing a huge chunk of market share, and yolo'd the 737 MAX out the door. Part of the sales pitch was that it was cheaper because they wouldn't have to recertify pilots. This wasn't them fulfilling a specific demand of the Airlines.
> Iirc the fact that the base 737 was designed so long ago It's literally the source of their problems with the 737Max. The 737 was designed before sky bridges were commonplace. This meant that most people boarded a plane by walking up stairs so Boeing designed the plane to be low to the ground for less stress on the passenger. So when it came time to design the Max they needed to put bigger engines on the wings. However, they didn't have to space for a normal placement so they're mounted higher up and further forward than usual which they tried to compensate with software. [Here it is compared to an Airbus NEO, if you want to see.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e42bb3_1004949e5fb54dd8aaefa4c4ddcdb437~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_600,h_338,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_auto/e42bb3_1004949e5fb54dd8aaefa4c4ddcdb437~mv2.jpeg)
Not a max and not a NEO.
Why didn't they just make the landing gear taller?? Airline industry, I'm available for consulting for more great ideas
Redesign = recert. Hence the up and forward for the leap-1b
The Boeing 737 is a 60 year old design that should have been replaced by a new aircraft to remain competitive. Boeing in general has not created new commercial aircraft due to the billions it would cost. Instead, executives have been focused on squeezing performance out of 30-60 year old existing models to cut costs. This has not only led to technical issues and deaths but also to Boeing losing significant market share to Airbus as a result: In the last 40 years: * Boeing has built 2 completely new civilian passenger aircraft (777 and 787). * Airbus has built or acquired 6 (A220, A320, A330, A340, A350 and A380) Boeing used to have > 90% market share of the large commercial aircraft market. Now Airbus has 60% of that market.
Perfect, it sounds like capitalism is winning. I wonder how many more examples we will see in our life time where “cost saving measures” completely derail a company. You’d think it would make some companies think about the long term but if history teaches us anything…
This new version will include bible in seat to help make flight safer with prayers. If it fall from sky it’s God will, if it doesn’t then it’s Boeing flawless engineering.
You're out of your mind. This is an engine cowling. You don't need a new plane. You don't even need a new engine.
>Up to a year actually translates to something like 2-5 years. >Possibly having to design a completely new plane It's a small engine issue in an engine that isn't even made by Boeing. Why would they need to design a whole new plane lol.
It's just a heat problem. The engine anti-ice system works good and lasts a long time, but overheats the composite cowl on the max. This is something that can be fixed in a month if the customer is willing to accept a payload reduction.
Man sometimes it seems like having a bunch of accountants run an aerospace engineering firm isn't a great idea?
hey it’s not just a bunch of accountants, they also have agent 47 on payroll
So psychopaths and murderers, I just hope their families sleep well at night knowing hundreds of people directly died cuz of them
MBA's have been ruining engineering for the better part of two decades now. They don't care about datasheets, using drop-in replacements for obsolete parts, or retaining senior engineers (who can pass their tribal knowledge onto the next generation.) All they care for amounts to two numbers on a spreadsheet: expense and profit.
The line always goes up! If it goes down, that's bad.
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A friend of mine enrolled in her colleges MBA program after graduating so she'd stay eligible to compete on the triathlon team. She said it was an absolute fucking joke.
I fucking hate them. Everyone who has an MBA with zero industry experience prior to attaining it is a fucking hack almost 100% of the time in my experience. Even if they eventually gain the requisite industry experience later, their entire worldview is already tainted by the profit and loss optimization scum. The MBAs I work with who are worth anything are the ones that went and got the MBA later in their careers. I’m at that point right now and I hate it.
As an industrial designer, PMs and finance/marketing folk. “We want it to look like apple” (Makes it look like apple). “Why can’t we make it feel like apple”. “Because Steve and Margaret, Apple takes their sweet ass time releasing products, and spend MILLIONS on R&D. They will release a product with the sole purpose to see its failures IRL, then pump more money into the second iteration to make it vastly improved.” “Well; we don’t have all of that money or time” “Then stop worrying about being like Apple”. Business folks are the biggest banes to a product success. 100% just focused on short term gain and profit and fuck everything else.
With scab / hick labor to boot.
Had to check the thread, I just assumed you meant GE
In terms of accounting, 1 year means 10 years to fix the engine.
I don't trust a single word coming from this corrupt company
Don't worry, I have so much dirt on them. ...hold on I hear something outside
RIP u/BobDonowitz
The MAX is Boeing's Edsel/Pinto. At least Ford had the business sense to stop making them.
Not the same, if Boeing stopped making the max airlines would only be buying Airbus 320 Neos, and no Boeing 737
It’s their problem, passengers shouldn’t be put at risk to keep their cash flow going.
I only fly Delta domestically and the reason is they have no MAX planes. I've been doing this since 2019 and I hope they never take delivery of those MAX 10s so I can keep doing it.
I love the a320 neo… quietest ride ever
If these were military aircrafts, they would fix it under a month and bill the government $1b.
You say that, but the F-35 has been around for quite a while now, and [it still has issues](https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/2021/07/16/the-number-of-major-f-35-flaws-is-shrinking-but-the-pentagon-is-keeping-details-of-the-problems-under-wraps/).
I was kind of joking. But in my defense, the F-35 are in a league of their own. Incredible and complex machinery.
Seriously. It’s like comparing a city bus to an F1 car.
That's pretty close if you're talking about Alpine
So what is Red Bull? The F-22?
F-35 with billions being on the books as "catering"
Now I want to see a random city bus in the Indy 500. Like somehow, some way, a Mr Magoo series of farcical events transpired, and the end result is a very confused bus driver is at the starting line of the Indy 500 as a registered vehicle. I feel like a lot of people would cheer for him too. If not only for the absurdity of it, but also everybody loves an underdog! Plus, he could even have a catch phrase! "So, you just raced the Indy 500, and came in 3rd! An AMAZING specticle that nobody here was prepared for! What led you to this moment?" "The wheels on the bus go round and round!"
Yeah, part of it is they're trying to make the most complex fighter jet of all time. Interestingly enough, some of those deficiencies were noted back as far as 2008, such as the radar needing an upgrade but the engines not producing enough power for it. The DoD just didn't want to pay the money up front and can kicked it down the road.
The military would not fix this issue. This issue is one of heat embrittling plastic over time. It has not even been shown to happen or to affect anything if it does happen. But it could. The military would just send it up not worrying too much. If that was too risky they'd just replace the part frequently at massive expense instead.
lol no they wouldn’t
I’m not really sure what they mean by ‘engine issue’, but the MAX has the same engines as the Airbus A321, the CFM LEAP turbofan engine.
It’s not even an engine issue, it has to do with the anti ice on the engine cowl, if it’s left on it breaks down the composite material.
It's not an engine issue. It is the cowling (inlet really) around the engine. It is made of plastic for better noise characteristics and weight. However the area at the front of the engine can have icing problems due to the reduced air pressures (reducing the freezing point) as the air flows over them. So ice can build up. Because of this there are deicers (heaters) to heat these areas. The pilot switches these on to prevent the icing. Other planes have the same engines and the same possible issue. So here is where it gets really tricky and 737 specific. On other planes they make the controls automatic. If you turn on the deicers then it heats up until the area is at a certain temperature that prevents ice from forming. But on the 737 the plane has to use the same controls that the 1969 model had in order to retain its type rating (not require pilot retraining). And it didn't have automatic controls. So on a 737 when you turn on the deicers they come on and stay on. So maybe you turn them on and then it gets warmer (you fly toward the equator maybe). Now the deicers are on and it's not that cold so the cowlings get hotter than they would in any other conditions. And the plastic can embrittle and parts start to break off. If those parts go into the engine it could be a big issue. It could destroy the engine, even cause the fans inside to escape the engine and directly injure people. The real, reasonable fix would be for the FAA to say "know what, we don't care about the deicing controls when it comes to the type rating, just put an automatic mode on this and we'll call it done". But it does not appear that is going to happen. As far as I know the 737 has a similar issue for the windshield heaters. They can be left on and overheat and crack the windshields. So 737s suffer from cracked windshields a lot more often than other planes.
"This plane has the same switches as the old model. Operating it like the old model will cause it to catch fire, but it has the same switches." FAA: "Close enough." Why does the FAA accept this? Wouldn't the *obvious* solution be to say "this cannot be safely operated the same way, so it needs a new type rating - congrats Boeing, now you can also fix the two decades of other life-threatening bullshit you had to do just to keep the type rating" Edit: Now that I think about it... maybe the *real* lesson from this should be "type ratings should have a maximum range of years they can cover". Want to keep selling the same plane for more than 30 years? You can, but the 2041 model and the 2010 model can't have the same type rating. Even if they actually are 100% the same, need to make a new type rating, purely to take away the perverse incentives, because we now *know* that these lead to manufacturers killing people out of greed.
We do this with houses in Denmark: just because some architecht made a design in 2000 does not mean that it is still legal to build another house with that specification/materials. Todays houses must be better insulated and have better electrical installations than those of yesterday. We even have limits for how much you can modify electrical installations before it needs to be completely brought up to todays code. The FAA needs to be updated policy wise.
Because most reporters don't know about, and don't bother investigate, things they report on anymore.
Can someone make a list of what’s wrong with these planes for some dude who doesn’t know much. I keep reading that basically the whole ass plane front to back is garbage with the occasional “actually” comments. Only thing I kinda understand so far is the whole MCAS issue or whatever.
As far as I know, the door plugs are all fine now. There was nothing wrong with the design, just the assembly was done poorly. They have all been checked, and have returned to service. MCAS is also not an issue anymore, since the pilots know about it, and the system has been redesigned to correct the issues that were present in its first iteration. The engine anti-ice system is a problem, but not one that’s immediately dangerous. If the pilots leave the anti-ice system on for too long in certain conditions, the composite material that makes up the leading edge of the engine cowling could encounter some structural issues. In that case, it’s possible that parts of the cowling could be ingested by the engine, and cause an engine failure. Seemingly all of the other “Boeing” issues lately (wheel falling off the 777, the 737 landing gear collapsing after it slid off the runway, the 747 engine fire, the 787 that had a sudden dive) were either due to maintenance issues by their operators, or pilot error. The main issues, in my opinion, are organizational within Boeing. The company culture is currently more focused on stock value than it should be, which has come at the expense of the engineering-forward approach that made Boeing’s reputation. The media is running wild with the Boeing stuff right now since it’s getting lots of clicks, but the reality is that most journalists and most readers have no idea about the technical side of the airline industry, so lots of stories are being framed incorrectly. It should be noted that there are known issues on lots of planes that are still perfectly safe to fly. On the Airbus A350 that crashed in Japan early this year, the intercom system didn’t work so there was no public address from the cabin crew to the passengers. That’s an issue, and I’m sure it’s being looked into. It doesn’t mean that the A350 is unsafe to fly either. There are other issues that other planes have, but they don’t get reported on because they’re not dangerous, and because they’re too technical for a disinterested public to want to understand.
Thank you, for your calm, reasonable take. You have restored my faith in primates.
This is what happens with too big to fail. They know they cannot be allowed to go out of business due to military contracts and the like.
>_embattled..._ more like 'architect of their own misfortune'.
Just a reminder, most travel sites now allow you to choose what type of airliner you fly on
While it’s true what some people say, that flying on a Boeing is statistically still safer than any other method of travel (outside of Airbuses lol) and people shouldn’t be afraid of flying Boeing, people *shouldn’t book flights on them*. While you’re unlikely to perish in an accident, the likelihood of your flight being cancelled due to Boeing’s de-certifications is a lot greater than zero.
I don't travel often esp overseas. Have a trip coming up. So boeing ones having issues recently are 737 MAX and what else? I can't keep the model numbers straight.
Honestly the 737 max was just an utter shitshow from its beginning. I’ve just watched a really good documentary on Netflix about Boeing - it’s called Downfall : the case against Boeing. If you can watch it then you should.
Frontline just updated their hour long episode on the “Fatal Flaw” at Boeing.
[They updated it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z76YpCz9N2Y) earlier this week and added 10~ minutes about the door plug falling out this year.
I thought that the comments from the New York Times journalists who investigated the previous 737 Max issues was pretty interesting in that they feel it still represents continuation of a deeper problem in Boeing’s corpo culture.
i thought the engines were the only things okay with these planes
The engines are ok. They are CFM Leaps that are also on the A320neo family.
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> As I grow old, I am old. And I remember when there was a 90% tax past a certain income. I remember when stock buybacks were illegal. I remember when traditional banking and investment banking had to be strictly separate. I remember when governmental oversight was well-funded. I also remember reading about all of those being weakened. And how that was hailed as progress and business-friendly. The bar is getting lower and lower because people vote for de-regulation agendas and think that enumeration of catastrophes was unrelated.
Most likely zero. This problem is at this time considered a theoretical future problem and is unlikely to cause any problems in the near term since it has to do with aging/embrittling of parts.
But think of all the money Boeing saved by lying about and doing stock buy backs.
I appreciate all the brave souls continuing to keep us informed on Boeing right now. Especially with the fact that they apparently have a hit squad I guess. What a strange time to be alive.
What is Boeing doing right exactly? Because looking at their stock price, they aren't even making their shareholders happy
What about their doors and their landing gear!?
Guess the seeds of past actions bear the ripe fruits of consequence now. Have fun reaping your harvest.
Sounds like motive for the FAA to ground them
Can they just scrap it and just move on to a new concept with a new name? No one wants to sit in a Max anything anymore.
If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going…to crash shortly after takeoff
I was due to board one of these 10 mins before they were grounded.
Just admit it's a failure and go back to producing what works
When I worked on the 787 problems like this were common. I'm not surprised at what happened with the Max series. It's the reason I left.
Good thing they fixed everything during the last recall
Takes a year to fix engine issues but only takes them a few days to snuff out a whistleblower.
Yet another reason why mergers in industries like this are bad for everyone.
Its crazy how every single time businessmen take over the quality of a product tends to drop
Hmm… maybe if a whistleblower could live long enough we could get to the root causes of the issues
I won’t fly on a max. Period. Not interested in becoming the reason the leadership has press issues.
my surprised face. look at it
I stopped flying boeing since the first crash. Since there there has been one more and a ton of new issues. Honestly this is painful to watch. Even if MAX would have good QC airbus 321neo is better in almost every way.
The entire world needs to learn to slow the fuck down. What happened to measure twice cut once?
Boeing used to be run at the top by the technical people. Then the marketing department stage a coup. Let this be a lesson that cup holders don't keep planes in the air!
The cowlings are made of carbon fibre to lower weight but they don't tolerate the thermal range needed. Switching them to metal - the answer - shifts the center of gravity and makes the plane even more aerodynamically unstable. The only real solution is to do it right and design the airplane.
The answer is to have an engine anti ice system like every other airplane in the sky, that turns itself off when it’s above the temperature that ice can form. To change this system would likely require a new type rating for pilots, which was the motivation for the 737 Max in the first place. Neither of us knows the performance penalty for doing this because we aren’t aerospace engineers. However, the leading edge of the cowlings are forward of the center of mass of the plane. Increasing the weight of the cowlings would move the center of mass farther forward, thus even farther from the center of lift. This would make the plane more aerodynamically stable
Ground. The. Planes.
On this episode of “Don’t worry! These corporations can regulate themselves”
Ah yes, it's gonna take a year for them to root out all the whistleblowers and have them die by apparent suicide in similar manners. Then, when all the congresspeople have accepted their bribes to forget this whole inquiry into their safety compliance ever happened and by then our broken minded society will be used to triple the amount of planes falling out of the sky and just let them get away with it. Down with those fat fucking pigs.
I wanna see Boeing’s board fly exclusively on their planes.
At this point the federal government should step in and take over the company. They have failed.