Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off(cnbc.com)
cnbc.com
Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/28/boeing-didnt-tell-southwest-that-safety-feature-on-737-max-was-turned-off-wsj.html
11 comments
These stories are from an acquired factory - it seems like they acquired a lot of problems when they bought Embraer.
Who knows. Maybe the problems where imposed on those factories.
As I commented in previous articles here on HN, the chance that there are other subsystems that were rushed and self-approved by Boeing is not zero, people thinking that fixing the MCAS is enough are forgetting to consider that other components had to be updated for the new design.
And it's recently emerged that the AoA sensor misread itself may have been Boeing's fault, and due to foreign object damage to wiring:
https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-rep...
Boeing also has foreign object damage problems on the 787 and on the KC46 tankers. Looks like this story still has a long way to run.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline...
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-a...
https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-rep...
Boeing also has foreign object damage problems on the 787 and on the KC46 tankers. Looks like this story still has a long way to run.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline...
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-a...
Wow, I'm surprised that's not more well-known (that the USAF halted all deliveries of the KC-46 after finding loose material and debris in delivered planes). Amazingly bad.
I wonder what the odds are that the Dreamliner gets grounded (again) soon to have them all gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
I wonder what the odds are that the Dreamliner gets grounded (again) soon to have them all gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
I've recently contacted all of the major airlines that fly the 737 Max as well as my congressional representatives and the FAA to let them know I have serious reservations about a software fix to the aircraft.
If this issue is concerning to you I'd recommend you do the same. To make it easier, I've put the links to all the contact sites below.
United Airlines https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare
Southwest Airlines https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html
American Airlines https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/
Find your Congressional representatives https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
FAA https://hotline.faa.gov/
If this issue is concerning to you I'd recommend you do the same. To make it easier, I've put the links to all the contact sites below.
United Airlines https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare
Southwest Airlines https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html
American Airlines https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/
Find your Congressional representatives https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
FAA https://hotline.faa.gov/
I always had great respect for aerospace and thought they'd put safety above all else but seeing all this, Boeing seems like a fucking travesty.
Boeing opened its South Carolina plant to avoid a unionized workforce, and that plant has been responsible for producing these horrific excuses they call airplanes. They had the benefit of a doubt before, but now it's clear that Boeing's leadership, like that of other public companies, values cheap labor over safety.
Things would change if there was accountability transferred all the way along the chain of command, and then the salaries C-level executives would certainly be much more warranted; the not just fines but hard jail time argument.
I'm not sure how unions have any relations to this. They exist as a mediator between management and workers for pay and rights; customer satisfaction or safety is completely outside their domain
Unions give employees the knowledge and leverage to push back against unrealistic demands, deadlines, and cost-cutting measures without retaliation. These kinds of rushed solutions causing more problems down the line are caused by a culture that rewards employees who put up with managers breathing down their neck.
Irrelevant in this case, though. While concerns have indeed been raised about SC production quality, this particular story involves an engineering failure, not a production issue. Boeing engineers are unionized through SPEEA. They can bring the company to its knees at contract negotiation time, and they have done so in the past.
I disagree, it is also a production issue because:
"One whistleblower reported to the FAA that they had seen damage to the electrical wiring connected to the plane’s angle of attack sensor from a foreign object, which feeds data to the MCAS system so it can determine whether it needs to engage to prevent the plane from stalling. This wouldn’t be the first time Boeing’s manufacturing process reportedly had problems guarding plane components against foreign object debris produced by the fabrication process."
"One whistleblower reported to the FAA that they had seen damage to the electrical wiring connected to the plane’s angle of attack sensor from a foreign object, which feeds data to the MCAS system so it can determine whether it needs to engage to prevent the plane from stalling. This wouldn’t be the first time Boeing’s manufacturing process reportedly had problems guarding plane components against foreign object debris produced by the fabrication process."
Stuff happens. The fact that damage to a single AOA sensor -- whether in the factory or in the field -- could cause this sort of event is strictly an engineering issue.
It is most definitely not "strictly" an engineering issue.
By that logic you can say it is a quality control, FAA or management issue (and not an engineering issue) - because the engineering problem was not caught by other systems.
Also "engineering" created the AoA disagree alert. Whoever decided to make that an optional feature should be "strictly" at fault? Maybe it is the fault of the airlines that decided not to have that feature installed?
Engineering is just one part of a complex system so why do you think engineering should be blamed 100% for failures that occurred due to the whole system?
By that logic you can say it is a quality control, FAA or management issue (and not an engineering issue) - because the engineering problem was not caught by other systems.
Also "engineering" created the AoA disagree alert. Whoever decided to make that an optional feature should be "strictly" at fault? Maybe it is the fault of the airlines that decided not to have that feature installed?
Engineering is just one part of a complex system so why do you think engineering should be blamed 100% for failures that occurred due to the whole system?
Engineering is just one part of a complex system so why do you think engineering should be blamed 100% for failures that occurred due to the whole system?
Because that's the only way something this complicated can possibly work. Fault tolerance is optional only if failure is considered to be a valid option.
Getting back to what happened in this case: at some point, a Boeing engineer was asked to make MCAS work with input from only one AoA sensor. That person could have made all the difference by saying, "Lol no," and SPEEA would have had their back.
Because that's the only way something this complicated can possibly work. Fault tolerance is optional only if failure is considered to be a valid option.
Getting back to what happened in this case: at some point, a Boeing engineer was asked to make MCAS work with input from only one AoA sensor. That person could have made all the difference by saying, "Lol no," and SPEEA would have had their back.
You should be rebutting my points. To rebut your new points:
I think failure is always acceptable engineering: a defining feature of engineering is finding compromises because we don't have infinite resources, infinite ability, or perfect materials.
> a Boeing engineer was asked to make MCAS work
That sounds like you are just making stuff up about a team of engineers. So your opinion is this is all the fault of a single engineer? Not engineering after all?
I think failure is always acceptable engineering: a defining feature of engineering is finding compromises because we don't have infinite resources, infinite ability, or perfect materials.
> a Boeing engineer was asked to make MCAS work
That sounds like you are just making stuff up about a team of engineers. So your opinion is this is all the fault of a single engineer? Not engineering after all?
1. Add MCAS system to artificially make airplane fly as if it were a different airplane.
2. Drive MCAS with only one AOA sensor.
3. Don't tell MCAS to look for (or even think about) bad AOA data or AOA disagreements.
4. Equip airplane with two AOA sensors as usual, but make the AOA disagree warning light a "value added option" that customers have to pay extra for.
5. Don't actually bother to tell pilots that they don't have AOA disagree warning lights.
6. Don't bother to tell pilots that MCAS exists at all.
7. Don't test MCAS subsystem to see what it actually does with bad AOA data.
8. Give MCAS a ridiculous amount of control authority, operating cumulatively over repeated applications to exceed what the pilot can manually override.
Now, exactly what items on this list are the responsibility of non-union labor in a South Carolina assembly plant, or whatever other mistuned horn you're tooting? Once again, in the absence of gross engineering malpractice, a broken AOA sensor is no big deal.
2. Drive MCAS with only one AOA sensor.
3. Don't tell MCAS to look for (or even think about) bad AOA data or AOA disagreements.
4. Equip airplane with two AOA sensors as usual, but make the AOA disagree warning light a "value added option" that customers have to pay extra for.
5. Don't actually bother to tell pilots that they don't have AOA disagree warning lights.
6. Don't bother to tell pilots that MCAS exists at all.
7. Don't test MCAS subsystem to see what it actually does with bad AOA data.
8. Give MCAS a ridiculous amount of control authority, operating cumulatively over repeated applications to exceed what the pilot can manually override.
Now, exactly what items on this list are the responsibility of non-union labor in a South Carolina assembly plant, or whatever other mistuned horn you're tooting? Once again, in the absence of gross engineering malpractice, a broken AOA sensor is no big deal.
Another poster cited a small anecdote about a Boeing whistleblower:
> In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.
In a unionized workforce, people are far more confident about pushing back on this sort of criminal bullshit, when their manager asks it of them. (Because getting rid of someone in a union shop requires a paper trail. And people making illegal demands hate, hate, hate paper trails.)
In a non-unionized workforce, the only recourse we, as the public have is to jail the line workers who scrubbed the paint, while their managers will quietly deny any wrongdoing (Of course we didn't suggest this sort of thing, of course we had no idea this was happening, of course we didn't pressure anyone into doing something so blatantly unethical, under express or implied threat of termination...)
We just told people that we need them to ship 100 parts, and waggled our eyelashes suggestively at a box labeled '100 defective parts'.
> In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.
In a unionized workforce, people are far more confident about pushing back on this sort of criminal bullshit, when their manager asks it of them. (Because getting rid of someone in a union shop requires a paper trail. And people making illegal demands hate, hate, hate paper trails.)
In a non-unionized workforce, the only recourse we, as the public have is to jail the line workers who scrubbed the paint, while their managers will quietly deny any wrongdoing (Of course we didn't suggest this sort of thing, of course we had no idea this was happening, of course we didn't pressure anyone into doing something so blatantly unethical, under express or implied threat of termination...)
We just told people that we need them to ship 100 parts, and waggled our eyelashes suggestively at a box labeled '100 defective parts'.
This is not a manufacturing issue. It is all on poor engineering and poor management making poor decisions.
Gosh, it's almost like corporate greed is ruining our country.
In South Carolina Boeing produces 787 Dreamliners. The 737 Max is produced in Washington.
It didn't always used to be this way - at one point Boeing delivered planes that were substantially safer than their competitors.
Moving the HQ to Chicago was a terrible idea. Companies like boeing should be managed by engineers not salespeople.
Moving the HQ to Chicago was a terrible idea. Companies like boeing should be managed by engineers not salespeople.
Companies like boeing should be managed by engineers not salespeople.
Dennis Muilenburg, the Boeing CEO, is an engineer.[0] And he apparently doesn't even have an MBA. It's hard to know exactly how and when he became seduced by the dark side.
Here's a summary (which I've posted before) of his egregiously bad behavior:
[1] https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/614857-indonesian-aircra...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-airplane-boeing-ceo...
Dennis Muilenburg, the Boeing CEO, is an engineer.[0] And he apparently doesn't even have an MBA. It's hard to know exactly how and when he became seduced by the dark side.
Here's a summary (which I've posted before) of his egregiously bad behavior:
Oct 29, 2018 Lion Air crash, 189 dead
Nov 10, 2018 pilots already talking about Boeing
emergency airworthiness directive related to MCAS[1]
Mar 10, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash kills 157
Mar 11, 2019 Boeing CEO "confident in 737 MAX safety"[2]
[1] https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/614857-indonesian-aircra...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-airplane-boeing-ceo...
The last CEO, James McNerney, was some Yale B.A dude with a Harvard MBA. The 737 MAX is fruit of the poison tree.
It's hard to keep a mistress when she lives in the same city as your wife.
What does this even mean?
Boeing has one job - making airliners that don't fall out of the sky. People have been putting planes in the air for over 100 years, it should be getting safer and easier to do so each year but apparently not. Boeing is failing at their one job.
Boeing has one job - making airliners that don't fall out of the sky. People have been putting planes in the air for over 100 years, it should be getting safer and easier to do so each year but apparently not. Boeing is failing at their one job.
Former CEO Phil Condit opened the Chicago office at least in part so he could have his secretary/mistress shack up in a company provided apartment.
> thought they'd put safety above all else
The bottom line is always above all else. Or is it executive compensation? I always forget which is first.
The bottom line is always above all else. Or is it executive compensation? I always forget which is first.
If I recall from earlier reporting, this is the safety light that Southwest paid extra to have installed, right?
I don't fly very often, but being in the midst of booking flights I'm very thankful for websites having filters by airplane type. I'll be paying the additional 10-20% to not set foot on a Boeing this time.
Wow, I'd be surprised if some young congressperson doesn't make their career by publicly eviscerating Boeing soon.
I hope you don't think it's going to be a US congresscritter.
"Why do you hate American jobs!"
"Why do you hate American jobs!"
Boeing as a whole might not be "evil", the same way VW as a whole is not "evil". So going after the whole of Boeing may not be the right thing.
At the same time, some high-up people in VW are paying for the emissions-cheating scandal, which arguably could endanger human beings and the environment.
When are people in Boeing going to pay for actually contributing to the deaths caused by this scandal?
At the same time, some high-up people in VW are paying for the emissions-cheating scandal, which arguably could endanger human beings and the environment.
When are people in Boeing going to pay for actually contributing to the deaths caused by this scandal?
You can turn that logic around real quick since Boeing also makes planes and other equipment for the US military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu...
You don't hate the troops after all, do you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu...
You don't hate the troops after all, do you?
"Why does the honorable senator from wherever want our troops to fly in unsafe planes? Shouldn't the honorable senator, who claims to support the troops, want our troops to have the most reliable and effective planes available?"
yep, "think of the troops" is just as emotive (and patronizing) as "think of the children". Unbelievable that people repeatedly fall for it.
I think it's valid to think about both. I just think sometimes people try to reduce risk to zero with no regard for the fact a zero risk society is one without civil liberties.
I feel like you are fantastically undervaluing the power of the Boeing lobby groups...
I'm thinking of a particular congresswoman that almost certainly isn't going to do it because she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing. It's not an obvious political win.
Edit: Ah, the good ol' "reality makes me unhappy so I'll shoot the messenger" down-votes. I don't know why I even comment in any of the Boeing threads anymore.
Edit: Ah, the good ol' "reality makes me unhappy so I'll shoot the messenger" down-votes. I don't know why I even comment in any of the Boeing threads anymore.
If it were me, I'd rail against the Boeing _leadership_. Frame it as management's greed putting blue collar jobs at risk (by putting sales and corporate reputation at risk).
You can "frame" it either way. If your goal is to get elected it doesn't seem prudent to wade into this kind of issue unless you can be sure that you can successfully frame it the way you want.
There's lower hanging political fruit out there.
There's lower hanging political fruit out there.
So let's not make a fuss about safety, because of jobs?
Where did I say that? All I said is that it wasn't a clear political win because it could easily be framed as a jobs issue.
> she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing
It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers.
That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.
It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers.
That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.
I don't think he's saying that, but he is being a pessimist (though with the way our political system is working, maybe more a realist than I want to accept).
dsfyu404ed never commented or implied on what should happen. He simply stated what might happen, and why it might happen.
Right... Let's not be too hard on the tobacco companies because you'll lose the vote of every blue collar farmer that's wants a stable job cultivating tobacco.
It's a pretty routine argument that says if you threaten my job for any reason I'll vote you out.
Doesn't matter if my job is creating things that crash, giving people cancer, etc.
That argument doesn't fly for a lot of us.
There will still be mechanical and aerospace jobs, just at companies that aren't going to play fast and loose with regulations.
It's a pretty routine argument that says if you threaten my job for any reason I'll vote you out.
Doesn't matter if my job is creating things that crash, giving people cancer, etc.
That argument doesn't fly for a lot of us.
There will still be mechanical and aerospace jobs, just at companies that aren't going to play fast and loose with regulations.
"If it's boeing I ain't going"
What an unfortunate blunder by Boeing.
Until this episode I was deliberately looking for 787's and such when booking international flights, despite what I had heard about the batteries, because I thought Boeing had to be just that much better than Airbus and their unintuitive UI's that I heard crashed AF447.
And now all that good will is gone.
Until this episode I was deliberately looking for 787's and such when booking international flights, despite what I had heard about the batteries, because I thought Boeing had to be just that much better than Airbus and their unintuitive UI's that I heard crashed AF447.
And now all that good will is gone.
AF447 was a pilot error
Or...now that Boeing has clearly lost trust, how much harder will they work to earn that trust back?
0 times harder is they bankrupt themselves.
I wonder how many serious problems Airbus have that we simply don't know about because they haven't been caught.
How is this helping, even if Airbus are as bad that does not help the people that were killed, at least after the first crash Boeing should have ground the planes until the problem was completely understood and fixed (in software or other way).
I will wait for the emails and other documents to surface and see how they took the decisions after the first crash, if the engineers reported the issues but nobody listen etc.
Hopefully some lessons will be learned from thins and engineers from other companies like Airbus would speak if shortcuts that are not safe are pushed.
I will wait for the emails and other documents to surface and see how they took the decisions after the first crash, if the engineers reported the issues but nobody listen etc.
Hopefully some lessons will be learned from thins and engineers from other companies like Airbus would speak if shortcuts that are not safe are pushed.
Well, they designed their airframe to handle the larger engines properly, rather than patching it with software. So I'm going to wager that the answer is "a lot less".
Boeing shot themselves in the foot after the awful outsourced supply chain [0] and battery problems on the 787 which meant that they had less financial resources available to go clean sheet and instead they adapted an old design.
[0] https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-f...
[0] https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-f...
I call these strategies "bonuses today, bankruptcy tomorrow".
This is pretty disturbing and makes me far more confident in my decision to never set foot on a Boeing airplane again.
I thought the American airlines had all opted for the AoA disagree light, but now it sounds like Southwest didn't have it because Boeing lied to them and said it was standard.
I thought the American airlines had all opted for the AoA disagree light, but now it sounds like Southwest didn't have it because Boeing lied to them and said it was standard.
very timely, AvE just made a teardown of an AOAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZ0D-JRtz0
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing...
The excerpt that stands out to me the most related the story of one of the whistleblowers finding pieces of debris within a 787 aircraft (between the passenger compartment and the skin), telling his supervisor, and then being told not to worry about it. In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.