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Boeing Co. limited the role of its own pilots in the final stages of developing the 737 MAX flight-control system implicated in two fatal crashes, departing from a longstanding practice of seeking their detailed input, people familiar with the matter said.
As a result, Boeing test pilots and senior pilots involved in the MAX' development didn't receive detailed briefings about how fast or steeply the automated system known as MCAS could push down a plane' nose, these people said. Nor were they informed that the system relied on a single sensor, rather than two, to verify the accuracy of incoming data about the angle of a plane's nose, they added.
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Boeing’s Own Test Pilots Lacked Key Details Of 737 Max Flight-Control System
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 05 2019, @07:23AM (15 children)
This may be the most damning evidence against Boeing. A lot of claims, a lot of evidence has been tossed out there, some of it more meaningful than others. But, if the test pilots don't even understand what the engineers have done with the plane, there is something bad wrong. Kind of, "Let's toss this out there, and see what happens. If the test pilots can get it airborne, we'll sell it."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:15AM (10 children)
It's the same Boeing which currently has customers rejecting new 787s and Tankers for quality reasons.
If the Board was doing its job, heads would roll at the top.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:58AM (6 children)
Confirmed [samchui.com]
But seems to be only the ones manufactured in South Carolina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 05 2019, @09:08AM (4 children)
I read that article, or one very similar. It almost looks like they recruited a bunch of handy-man backyard mechanics to build their planes for them. It doesn't take a lot of smarts to understand that crap housekeeping leads to all kinds of failures - electronic, electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and even basic personal safety. Try reaching some almost inaccessible bolts on a pump, when the dick who last worked on it left metal all over the floor beneath it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:41PM (3 children)
There's a balance between being a "team player" and zealously following "best practices."
"Team players" might do a quick and dirty install, leave a few shavings, and get it out on-time, while other "team players" would suck it up and clean up the mess when they find it, understanding how things get left like that sometimes. In design, we call it "technical debt" and it's a very real thing: today's shortcuts are going to cost you in the future, plus interest.
"Best practices" would clean up those shavings 100% before calling the job done, and that is all kinds of good, but it does mean slower initial delivery, higher initial costs, and more missed deadlines. The best best practices optimize for minimum total lifecycle costs, including the costs of reduced reliability when things aren't done "the best way we know how..." Unfortunately, it is too easy to gild the lilly, for instance, one might make the case that the shavings not only be cleaned, but the compartment also be wiped down with a tack cloth, followed by a cleaner, and then an anti-oxidant sealer - requiring additional ventilation for safe use of the chemicals and extra time for not only the three extra wipe downs, but also adequate drying time between them, and a tighter environmental control (temperature and humidity) for proper use of the wipe-down chemicals. At some point, it's increasing total life-cycle costs for no measurable benefit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:04PM (2 children)
'Best practices' sounds like there might be other acceptable practices? I don't see how.
Leaving metal shavings inside a car or mobile home is probably ok, because things tend to gravitate and stay put.
If they don't and the thing stops working, you can always pull over and figure out what happened.
This is not the case in something that flys. Expecting things to stay put and being able to just pull over and stop are not options.
An airplane mechanic that leaves metal shavings or spare parts lying about has simply not done his job.
A management plan that leads to this has a serious problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:51PM (1 child)
Exactly. Management didn't care.
They moved some construction to a cheap Southern state with no union I presume all in the name of cutting costs.
Something tends to give when the overall focus is cheaper and faster. Don't think management is unaware. They gambled on it by pushing quality aside thinking it wouldn't matter (much).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 07 2019, @04:23PM
> They moved some construction to a cheap Southern state with no union I presume all in the name of cutting costs.
That was both cutting costs on that plane, and putting pressure on the unions back in Everett. Combined with the headquarter move to Chicago, the whole plan was designed to tell the historical expensive workers that the diversified company wasn't stuck having to deal with them, so they'd better be reasonable.
Given the results, it seems to have backfired (if the executives can realize that)
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:54PM
> The New York Times was the first to report this, with a detailed front-page article
> presenting the alleged negligence at Boeing’s South Carolina factory that
> assembles the 787 Dreamliner. [samchui.com]
First one Americans actually listen to, 5 years after evil Al Jazeera reported the same concerns:
https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/boeing787/ [aljazeera.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:29PM (1 child)
Heads should probably roll all the way down to anyone who calls themselves "Manager." I used to call myself "in charge" of a group, and that means responsible for the decisions that are made. Today, I have chosen the "individual contributor" role, which means that I offer up my opinions and experience to management, and when they choose to decide against me I shrug my shoulders and do what I am told, as long as it is not a matter of customer safety.
From the individual contributor level, it's often hard to see what is and isn't a matter of customer safety. We are more than happy when procedural constraints are relaxed, it makes it easier to do what we seem to be paid to do - deliver our products on-time. The Managers who relax those constraints too far should know when they are increasing risk to the customers, and should be held accountable when they do - not only harm customers, but even increase risk to unacceptable levels.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @08:54PM
Why should heads roll?
Clearly they were the exact kind of leadership shareholders want: ones determined to maximize profit !
So lesson learned, next time they will be a little more careful.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:42PM
Sick Sigma
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:23PM (1 child)
It stinks of a lazy, broken procedural system that just didn't bother to communicate essential information through the training channels because, "well shit, Martha, we've been doing this for decades now and it's just a boring, annoying, pain in everybody's ass that costs all kinds of time and money for no good reason. Can we just let this one slide out there, huh? You'd have to be a god-damned moron to not figure it out on the fly."
Heads up, Boeing, not every pilot in the world has your same background and experience, and they might not even be morons, but still not "figure it out on the fly."
As I recall, the first crash was preceeded by a near-miss event where a pilot did figure it out "on the fly" but the next crew wasn't as fortunate. If we want to throw all pilots into a homogeneous pool and talk odds, it might be one in 500 that didn't "get it" in time to fly safely, but you put enough combinations in the cockpit and sooner or later you'll come up with a combo where neither the captain nor the co-pilot "got it" quickly enough.
Unfortunately, not all populations of pilots are equally intuitive about what a Boeing engineer might be thinking, so I think the true picture was something more like one in 100 in those "at risk" populations from less Boeing-engineer-thinking cultures, so it was more like one in 10,000 crew combinations that were put in mortal danger.
This time it's going to cost Boeing pretty dearly - they screwed up before Airbus did. Airbus isn't perfect, their reliance on computer modeling in the 1980s showed up as a whole lot of "doublers" around the doors and engine pylons in the 1990s due to real-world realities that just didn't make it into the 1980s theoretical models. However, if I had to rate the two on procedural compliance, I think Airbus does have a more compliant culture and that has paid off for them in this go around.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @01:59PM
Yet another person trying treat problems as "random". Doing that IS the root problem. Pilots didn't just randomly fail to figure it out, there is a reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:08PM (1 child)
There are two seats in the cockpit. One person should know everything but only act if there is an emergency. The person doing the flying should only know that the other person can save them.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @02:33PM
Both people should not be told which one of the two roles they are.
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