But in this case the "new thing" is a warning system that is found in almost all modern planes. It's not new to Boeing or its pilots, is an industry standard, and doesn't require novel engineering practices. It sounds like Boeing painted itself into a corner once again (this time with the Southwest orders), and doesn't want to eat the engineering/certification cost to get out "the right way" by implementing this system in its existing avionics. Boeing should feel the consequences of its actions, including lost profits, and play by the rules.
The scale of sunk-cost fallacy here just seems comical.
Assuming you didn't want to just scrap or major-refit the planes entirely, presumably the right answer was to back away from the "We'll make it the same type rating." Then you can probably discard the MCAS system, which regardless of its technical merits is a hopelessly damaged brand.
I get that there was some financial penalty attached to that strategy, but I have to imagine they long ago sailed past that cost in settlements, reputational damage, and cancelled orders.
It's not like this is going to buy back their reputation either. People don't want to see legal loopholes and "here's a patch fix you can bolt on the side and it really fixes it, we're sure, honest, trust us." They want some obvious and grand gesture to help restore trust, like "we're ripping out the Fly Into The Ocean mechanism and retraining every pilot that walks within three kilometres of these planes at our own colossal expense."
Of course, my opinion of Boeing has been undermined since mid-Pandemic; they have a factory nearby and every day there was a huge cluster of employees protesting the vaccination mandates. At this point, I'd feel more confident in an Tupolev product.
The original post had numbers, it seems they could probably swing a deal with Southwest to cancel the tiny one (who knows, subsidize fuel for them or something) but the big one is going to be harder to satisfy the contracts without cost.
Someone deep in the bowels of Boeing is running the numbers, I assure you - and right now the cheapest option is "get the FAA to let them run without this thing" but once that window closes the next cheapest may be "add the thing" or it may be "negotiate with the airlines with purchase orders to do something" which could include offering to up-train pilots on type, paying cancellation fees, who knows.
And as long as the first option is open, they'll argue that it's the only possible option.
Also I still don't understand why the executive board of Boeing aren't in jail (I mean I "know", in the sense that they're rich and so the laws don't apply to them, I just don't understand why that still works even in such blatant cases of deliberate mass murder)
It's never too late to reverse a bad decision - Max series is and remains a low bar airplane; we all know why: Marketing took over engineering. Accept the problem, scrap it and move on.
Well certainly the people killed by these planes are also entitled to an opinion, but I guess there's survivorship bias in play in the market of opinions.
As a producer of civilian airframes and a major military contractor, Boeing has discovered a way to cut out the middlemen and kill all the civilians directly.
Regular people boarded the Max 8 and regular people will have board the Max 7 and Max 10. Unless of course, only aviation industry professionals fly on the Max 7 and 10s.
> > Honestly, if you aren't part of the aviation industry in some professional capacity, I don't think you're entitled to an opinion on this.
"You don't share my opinion, [and you lack credentials,] so kindly don't speak" is becoming an increasingly common debate stratagem.
It would be so much gentler if it were phrased as, "Industry professionals have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I'm not sure your conclusions capture the complexities and nuances of the situation, but I understand your points".
This whole saga, including this article, has been about the tension between Boeing's business/political shortcuts and what aviation experts seem to think is prudent.
"Planes should not fall out of the sky. Aviation experts please fix this."
"Also, lawmakers, ensure the aviation experts fix this."
"Having regard to our advisors, we, the US lawmakers, have concluded that one criterion according to which aviation experts should judge their fix is that planes should have a doobywhacky in them, because aviation experts have assured us that a doobywhacky is important. But we will give them two years to get their plane certified without the doobywhacky on a legacy basis, since it seems like a good faith effort should be able to get legacy planes certified within two years."
"Aviation experts at Boeing, we, the aviation experts at the FAA would like to know some information about your planes."
"Aviation experts at Boeing, we, the aviation experts at the FAA need to know some information about your planes; what you have said is not good enough and you've left many questions unanswered."
"Oh, hi, US lawmaker, we, the lobbyists at Boeing thought you might like to know how bad it would be for you if the law isn't changed, yeah, we know everyone thought a good faith effort should be able to get legacy planes certified within two years, but you know how complicated planes can be."
And at this point, I think there are two possible replies: "Everyone believed it should have been possible, and there are clearly problems at Boeing's end, so they need to wear their mistakes; it's not like they're left with nothing and it's widely agreed that 737 MAX represents an end-of-line design so the cost is not excessive" or "The two years was written into the law to get these particular models out without conforming to the law; if they can be approved under the strictest application of the old rules, does it hurt if the approval is made just before the two year deadline, or just after it? In either case, it's flying according to the legacy certification. So we'll just extend the period a little."
I certainly think a case can be built either way, but knowledge of aviation is really only a minor part of the decision making process facing lawmakers right now.
Well, I mean... if Boeing is so corrupt and/or incompetent to let TWO of their airplanes full of people crash because of bad engineering / bad ops, perhaps we can have an opinion on the matter?
If retraining those pilots, mechanics, and other support personnel are required, then why not do it? Sure, it will be expensive, but if the costs are human lives, c'est la vie.
> Honestly, if you aren't part of the aviation industry in some professional capacity, I don't think you're entitled to an opinion on this.
Unless the proposal is to only use the aircraft for flying cargo, this is absolute nonsense.
As soon as the public is allowed to board the aircraft for regular flights, then *OF COURSE* the public is entitled to an opinion about how safe aircraft should be. To even suggest otherwise is, frankly, nonsense.
Maybe cargo but over seas? I mean if an airplane crashes it crashes on someone else's land, unless Boing is buying land to build like a flying railroad or something then everyone that lives close enough to an air route has a say on what they fly above them.
Last time I checked, there's remarkably few airports in international waters. Most big airports that are cargo hubs are(unsurprisingly) next to major cities.
Retraining pilots and mechanics is what is needed. The idea of keeping the same jet but slapping on larger more fuel efficient engines was and remains disastrous. To fit the larger engines they had to shift the placement to the front changing the aerodynamics of the plane. Adding a couple sensors to constantly correct the pitch for this hacked together designed is an embarrassment to Boeing.
The 737max should either be scrapped or limited to cargo only (at best).
Why limit to cargo? MCAS is just a pilot aid that changes the type rating of the aircraft. It was designed to avoid that change but we are witnessing why you do not hide critical subsystems from pilots or regulators. So reveal the system, force a new type, require training. Revealing the system will highlight the obvious flaw of a single air speed foil and aerodynamic issues of the elevator trim. Fix that and you have a perfectly flightworthy plane.
But money is the motivator here and the MAX is starting to look like a loss leader. Big question here: what will southwest do if the MAX requires a new certification by pilots? Stick with Boeing (meaning Boeing pays for this mistake) or flip entirely to airbus (and Boeing loses a major customer)
If you have written software for planes you should know that it is near impossible to fuck up this bad. It is hard to fuck up at level D like that, it is near impossible to fuck up this way at A(or was it classified at B?).
The amount of people who have to have went "this doesn't seem too important, I don't need to check this" is unfathomable. That such an error was not caught speaks of a deep rot in the entire organization, from management down to the guys writing the software.
It is very unfortunate that safety critical software is not developed inhouse. The direct communication between engineering, development, testing and management is usually quite important.
But this is never an excuse even if this software had been delivered from a contractor it is the duty of Boeing to write specific requirements and to test them, while making sure that the requirements cover all forseeable eventualities.
This isn't frontend development. You do not just ship software some third party wrote for you.
Having seen inside a group with Ma B, and you can believe me or not when I say Boeing hasn't had a single completely successful new program in more than a generation.
Sometimes individuals or teams will, with herculean effort, do a clever thing here or there, but by and large Boeing leadership has created an environment that's actively hostile to innovation. I've never seen an incompetent person fired, not once. It's always the superstars and the go getters.
Occasionally they buy some company, exhaust its goodwill, then zombify it with dead-eyed MBAs as a meaningless "Center of Excellence". It's such efficient value destruction they should figure out a way to pack it into a JDAM.
You would make a poor airline executive. These planes cost an enormous amount of money to develop. I notice you didn't mention the poor training of the now deceased pilots. Be brave and mention all the factors.
Another comment opening with a personal attack. I hope you're not an airline executive.
While the requirements for the MAX were largely defined by Southwest Airlines, Boeing's sales targets for the plane focused largely in developing ecosystems, i.e. airlines in Southeast Asia or Africa.
It's not logical nor practical to think that pilots in developing countries should meet the training norms in the US. Developing countries don't have air forces or general aviation ecosystems anything close to the size and scale of the US.
If you are going to develop a plane to sell in a certain market, the plane must be able to accommodate the needs of the market. This is why automation and fly-by-wire is the way to go. It's also why the future will be further automation, up to and including autonomous flight.
I still won’t fly a Boeing MAX. Literally refused to do a business meeting in person and just did it over Zoom because the only sensible flight was on a MAX.
Even if multiple independent sources deem the MAX safe after modifications, I will won't want to fly on one. Part of me wants to punish Boeing, even if the impact is minuscule in the grand scheme of things.
The software solution was to disable MCAS if sensors disagreed by more than X. The FAA didn't release any data on how many flights landed successfully with MCAS disabled, nor did they address the scenario really at all in their report. Instead of using actual numbers, the FAA used Boeing-speak along the lines of "MCAS only activates in very rare scenarios." Not quantified whatsoever, just vague turn of phrase.
If MCAS only activates in very rare scenarios, then why have it at all? And if it's necessary in these scenarios, how safe is the aircraft if it's disabled?
The booking tool my company gives us to book flights shows equipment for each flight. I avoid the MAX as well, even if it's inconvenient. Not to the point of cancelling travel as you have, but only because I haven't yet had to as there are many options for my particular pair of airports. Reputational loss is something companies manage as a risk and in this case IMHO Boeing should take the loss on a redesign to regain reputation and trust in their product. Because if they don't people like you and me will continue to avoid some of their airframes.
the md-10 had cargo doors that did not close properly. People continued to fly them. If the max planes are regulated to budget airlines due to the new low cost, you think people will still boycott it. History says otherwise
Even if you could book a flight without use of a MAX... good luck staying off of a MAX if your booked flight has mechanical trouble and the airline moves you to a different flight.
It should come as no surprise that Boeing is simply motivated by money at every turn and nothing else. No individual is ever held personally liable in the US for cases like these (vs e.g diesel gate in Europe). And the fines against the company are a joke at best.
If I understand OP well, normal companies are fortunately still bounded by laws on criminal negligence. People working for most companies also avoid that the situation gets so bad that they risk becoming personally liable.
So why not just reinterpret the original comment so it survives, and take it to highlight the difference between a rule-of-law legal system that punishes rich companies who break the law until it has motivated law-following behavior, and a corrupt legal system that does not punish rich companies who break the law enough to motivate law-following behavior. I don't think the balance between Europe and the US has always been in Europe's favor, so it's not like there's no capacity to improve.
It’s the fatal flaw of capitalism: any time X is actually more important than making money, companies (especially public ones) cannot focus on X above all else. (A great example is health companies, where human health and well-being is the most important variable, but often conflicts with making money.)
Just the fact that Irkut (Russian) and Comac (Chinese) have competitor aircraft not only taking orders but in the skies should be enough to get most of the octogenarians in congress to give Americas flagship aircraft manufacturer a green light to sell whatever it wants during a global recession.
it does nothing however to ameliorate the fact that most of the original 737 buyers who were grounded have moved on to Airbus or variant Boeings with a less haunted track record.
TL;DR that adds engineering complexity and/or would trigger redesigns of other components. The MAX 8 was supposed to be an economical refresh - a stopgap until the Y1/"New Midsize Airplane" was ready. (The sales/economic failure of the Y1 "787 Dreamliner" means the Y1 project is paused while Boeing waits for next generation technology to become available. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Yellowstone_Project )
No, the wheels fold inward and fit into holes in the underbelly: https://i.imgur.com/6OjnKrl.jpg You can't just "make it longer". And moving engines greatly effects the CG.
I understand (and agree with) all of the "fuck Boeing!" sentiment here, but look at this situation from a purely logical perspective:
Every 737 flying today, including the two already-certified MAX variants, does not have EICAS. If it's such a massive safety concern, then why are they still allowed to fly? Of course, it's not a massive safety concern. EICAS is great, and requiring it in future aircraft is a good thing, but aircraft without it are still safe.
The additional two years given from the law passing until the requirement would go into effect were basically to allow the MAX 7 and 10 to be certified without EICAS. And in all practical likelihood, Congress will give Boeing an extension to allow them to be certified without EICAS in 2023. There's really no reason not to, aside from "fuck Boeing."
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadAssuming you didn't want to just scrap or major-refit the planes entirely, presumably the right answer was to back away from the "We'll make it the same type rating." Then you can probably discard the MCAS system, which regardless of its technical merits is a hopelessly damaged brand.
I get that there was some financial penalty attached to that strategy, but I have to imagine they long ago sailed past that cost in settlements, reputational damage, and cancelled orders.
It's not like this is going to buy back their reputation either. People don't want to see legal loopholes and "here's a patch fix you can bolt on the side and it really fixes it, we're sure, honest, trust us." They want some obvious and grand gesture to help restore trust, like "we're ripping out the Fly Into The Ocean mechanism and retraining every pilot that walks within three kilometres of these planes at our own colossal expense."
Of course, my opinion of Boeing has been undermined since mid-Pandemic; they have a factory nearby and every day there was a huge cluster of employees protesting the vaccination mandates. At this point, I'd feel more confident in an Tupolev product.
Someone deep in the bowels of Boeing is running the numbers, I assure you - and right now the cheapest option is "get the FAA to let them run without this thing" but once that window closes the next cheapest may be "add the thing" or it may be "negotiate with the airlines with purchase orders to do something" which could include offering to up-train pilots on type, paying cancellation fees, who knows.
And as long as the first option is open, they'll argue that it's the only possible option.
Also I still don't understand why the executive board of Boeing aren't in jail (I mean I "know", in the sense that they're rich and so the laws don't apply to them, I just don't understand why that still works even in such blatant cases of deliberate mass murder)
Honestly, if you aren't part of the aviation industry in some professional capacity, I don't think you're entitled to an opinion on this.
Boeing: "the Next Hundred Years".
That ship has largely already sailed after the 737 Max crashes.
"You don't share my opinion, [and you lack credentials,] so kindly don't speak" is becoming an increasingly common debate stratagem.
It would be so much gentler if it were phrased as, "Industry professionals have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I'm not sure your conclusions capture the complexities and nuances of the situation, but I understand your points".
"Also, lawmakers, ensure the aviation experts fix this."
"Having regard to our advisors, we, the US lawmakers, have concluded that one criterion according to which aviation experts should judge their fix is that planes should have a doobywhacky in them, because aviation experts have assured us that a doobywhacky is important. But we will give them two years to get their plane certified without the doobywhacky on a legacy basis, since it seems like a good faith effort should be able to get legacy planes certified within two years."
"Aviation experts at Boeing, we, the aviation experts at the FAA would like to know some information about your planes."
"Aviation experts at Boeing, we, the aviation experts at the FAA need to know some information about your planes; what you have said is not good enough and you've left many questions unanswered."
"Oh, hi, US lawmaker, we, the lobbyists at Boeing thought you might like to know how bad it would be for you if the law isn't changed, yeah, we know everyone thought a good faith effort should be able to get legacy planes certified within two years, but you know how complicated planes can be."
And at this point, I think there are two possible replies: "Everyone believed it should have been possible, and there are clearly problems at Boeing's end, so they need to wear their mistakes; it's not like they're left with nothing and it's widely agreed that 737 MAX represents an end-of-line design so the cost is not excessive" or "The two years was written into the law to get these particular models out without conforming to the law; if they can be approved under the strictest application of the old rules, does it hurt if the approval is made just before the two year deadline, or just after it? In either case, it's flying according to the legacy certification. So we'll just extend the period a little."
I certainly think a case can be built either way, but knowledge of aviation is really only a minor part of the decision making process facing lawmakers right now.
If retraining those pilots, mechanics, and other support personnel are required, then why not do it? Sure, it will be expensive, but if the costs are human lives, c'est la vie.
Unless the proposal is to only use the aircraft for flying cargo, this is absolute nonsense.
As soon as the public is allowed to board the aircraft for regular flights, then *OF COURSE* the public is entitled to an opinion about how safe aircraft should be. To even suggest otherwise is, frankly, nonsense.
The 737max should either be scrapped or limited to cargo only (at best).
But money is the motivator here and the MAX is starting to look like a loss leader. Big question here: what will southwest do if the MAX requires a new certification by pilots? Stick with Boeing (meaning Boeing pays for this mistake) or flip entirely to airbus (and Boeing loses a major customer)
If you truly work in aviation, then you should consider finding another career. Our industry needs less people with your type of thinking.
The amount of people who have to have went "this doesn't seem too important, I don't need to check this" is unfathomable. That such an error was not caught speaks of a deep rot in the entire organization, from management down to the guys writing the software.
But please, keep opining.
But this is never an excuse even if this software had been delivered from a contractor it is the duty of Boeing to write specific requirements and to test them, while making sure that the requirements cover all forseeable eventualities.
This isn't frontend development. You do not just ship software some third party wrote for you.
Sometimes individuals or teams will, with herculean effort, do a clever thing here or there, but by and large Boeing leadership has created an environment that's actively hostile to innovation. I've never seen an incompetent person fired, not once. It's always the superstars and the go getters.
Occasionally they buy some company, exhaust its goodwill, then zombify it with dead-eyed MBAs as a meaningless "Center of Excellence". It's such efficient value destruction they should figure out a way to pack it into a JDAM.
While the requirements for the MAX were largely defined by Southwest Airlines, Boeing's sales targets for the plane focused largely in developing ecosystems, i.e. airlines in Southeast Asia or Africa.
It's not logical nor practical to think that pilots in developing countries should meet the training norms in the US. Developing countries don't have air forces or general aviation ecosystems anything close to the size and scale of the US.
If you are going to develop a plane to sell in a certain market, the plane must be able to accommodate the needs of the market. This is why automation and fly-by-wire is the way to go. It's also why the future will be further automation, up to and including autonomous flight.
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81272421
If MCAS only activates in very rare scenarios, then why have it at all? And if it's necessary in these scenarios, how safe is the aircraft if it's disabled?
That's just a normal company.
...because it's bad for money to break them. Money is still the motivation.
it does nothing however to ameliorate the fact that most of the original 737 buyers who were grounded have moved on to Airbus or variant Boeings with a less haunted track record.
Irrespective of Boeing’s egregious safety lapses? I think not.
The entire 737 series is already comprised of retractable gear aircraft.
TL;DR that adds engineering complexity and/or would trigger redesigns of other components. The MAX 8 was supposed to be an economical refresh - a stopgap until the Y1/"New Midsize Airplane" was ready. (The sales/economic failure of the Y1 "787 Dreamliner" means the Y1 project is paused while Boeing waits for next generation technology to become available. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Yellowstone_Project )
The A350 employs the same technology and is an economic success.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/ziggyworks/coolstuff/Boei...
Every 737 flying today, including the two already-certified MAX variants, does not have EICAS. If it's such a massive safety concern, then why are they still allowed to fly? Of course, it's not a massive safety concern. EICAS is great, and requiring it in future aircraft is a good thing, but aircraft without it are still safe.
The additional two years given from the law passing until the requirement would go into effect were basically to allow the MAX 7 and 10 to be certified without EICAS. And in all practical likelihood, Congress will give Boeing an extension to allow them to be certified without EICAS in 2023. There's really no reason not to, aside from "fuck Boeing."