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The past 10 months have not been good for Boeing for all sorts of reasons—capped off by the failure of the company's Starliner commercial crew vehicle to achieve the right orbit in its uncrewed premier in December. But the biggest of the company's problems remains the 737 Max, grounded since last spring after two crashes that killed 346 people between them. Combined, the crashes are the worst air disaster since September 11, 2001.
Both were at least partially caused by a sensor failure with no redundancy and a problem with MCAS (the new software controlling the handling of the aircraft) that the air crews had not been trained to overcome.
Boeing executives are now telling the company's 737 Max customers that the software fix required to make the airliner airworthy will not be approved in the near future, and that it will likely be June or July before the Federal Aviation Administration certifies the aircraft for flight again—meaning that the aircraft will have been grounded for at least 16 months.
The FAA, for its part, has not committed to any timeframe for re-certifying the aircraft. In an emailed statement, an FAA spokesperson said, "We continue to work with other safety regulators to review Boeing's work as the company conducts the required safety assessments and addresses all issues that arise during testing."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @09:25PM (17 children)
A little regulation is good, too much is bad, partly because too many regulations means a higher chance of bad ones.
The FAA has a long tradition of "whatever you are already doing is fine, but anything new is almost impossible." This is true even if the old way is inferior, or even completely inappropriate. Desperate to avoid triggering the FAA's phobia of anything new, Boeing built an aircraft that was inherently unsafe, which breezed through regulatory approval not just in spite of its flaws, but in fact because of them. Boeing easily could have modified the aircraft to properly support the new engines, but it was easier to approve a bad airplane that was more like an old one, than a much better and safer airplane that would have been a little different.
While everyone at Boeing who knew this aircraft was dangerous is culpable, let's not overlook the fact that the reason they felt they had to do it was because the regulations all but required them to.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday January 26 2020, @11:01PM (15 children)
Bullshit. It's because Boeing was losing market share and the Congress allowed them to be cheap rather than safe.
A bit of history of how 737MAX got to be [theguardian.com]:
Delegating certification to regulated entities [brookings.edu]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday January 27 2020, @01:38AM (11 children)
Even when libertarians are right, they are wrong. Failure is always hamstrung by the naysayers.
Oh look, more consequences of overregulation. One national level competitor who is too big to fail. Clearly, the libertarians' fault for that one.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @08:30PM (10 children)
In this universe, libertarians are never right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:11AM (9 children)
They tend to be more left than right, but there's a bunch who are right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:34AM (8 children)
The stupidest kind, IMHO, aligning themselves along the idea of "the legislated right to be greedy" (aka "individualism" in polite-speak) with a mixture of "free market fairy" mysticism. Will lead in less than one generation to "the law of the jungle - the one who commands more power prevails" - the majority of useful idiots will not be among the victors.
Even the anarchists are more realistic in their utopic dreams: at least they promote voluntary, cooperative institutions; would there be more of like-minded, there is a (even so remote) chance for a stable society to resist for some time - but the equilibrium will be unstable.
Both of the above may have their place in a mostly-empty world, but will end in a world-burning pyre if attempted on (a slightly over-populated) Earth. Dream of them when the asteroid belt colonization is past the point of self-sufficiency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:35AM (7 children)
So what? You aren't covering yourself in glory with this straw man. Even if the "stupidest kind" were as idiotic as claimed, they aren't in charge. Your two minute hate doesn't change anything.
That caveat applies as well to whatever you think would be better.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @05:52AM (5 children)
Was a statement of my opinion on right-libertarianism.
Feel free to skip over and save yourself the time you waste making assumption about my motives.
remark classified as baseless and irrelevant anyway
And...???
I mean, besides bashing a strawman with my nickname stuck on it, is there more that you want to convey?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 28 2020, @06:47AM (4 children)
And my statement on how stupid a straw man it was was opinion too. But not so stupid.
Yes, I think you're giving libertarianism a raw deal. We've tried top down governance and we end up with stuff like Boeing, broken markets with too big to fail firms bailed out every time they get into trouble (or as now, merely want increase profits a bit).
Further, read your links next time. Next time, throw away the link that blames roughly 1% of the population for the actions of the rest.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 28 2020, @07:08AM (3 children)
You say it like the libertarianism cares that much about the raw deal that I get to it.
Or, are you actually afraid that others will start to share my opinion? (I don't know, like, maybe, the way you are afraid of Germany trying to get rid of fossils until 2050?)
Yes, when top-down governance failed, the right libertarianism is The Solution. Must be, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:12PM (2 children)
The pattern is already set. A bunch of idiots use the power of the state to screw things up and kill hundreds of people. The medical analogy is iatrogenesis [wikipedia.org] - causing disease and other harm through the treatments that were supposed to help.
The problem here is that just like the German example above, this will hurt millions of people or more. I get to deal with the blowback just like everyone else. It's interesting how so much is rationalized on imaginary harm while present day, real world harm gets glossed over. German energy policies result in more expensive electricity and increased net green house gases emissions for a scheme that's supposed to end German nuclear power and reduce global greenhouse gases by a trivial amount?
It's just thrashing. And it's grossly insulting that the people actually interested in fixing these sorts of problems are getting blamed for it.
Your reasoning not mine. But given your earlier "legislated right to be greedy" I guess this is what we can expect from you on the subject.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:23PM (1 child)
Which idiots and what people are killed?
Citation needed.
Uh, and who are those fabled people?
Aww, how sweet. You just happen to agree.
Look, there's no shame of being sarcasm impaired. The good soylentils will mark it especially for you, if you just admit it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 28 2020, @09:46PM
The 737 MAX accidents. First, the people passing laws on regulating passenger aircraft and the people doing the regulation created a too big to fail situation with a single US manufacturer of large passenger jets and enormous barriers of entry to anyone else wanting to enter that market. Second, the big to fail manufacturer was having trouble so Congress gave them a pass - as you remarked [soylentnews.org] upon earlier.
The regulators created a huge cost differential between the regulations on an upgrade of an existing plane versus anything new as noted [soylentnews.org] in the AC post you initially replied to - that includes pilot training requirements BTW.
Finally, we have to consider the bizarre engineering shortcuts: a safety system that was optional, and a sensor that was a single point of failure for a lethal crash when there were back up sensors on the plane. I think shortscreen [soylentnews.org] got that right in that the shortcuts were put in solely to get past regulatory requirements.
So to summarize, we have a regulatory agency that went for appearances over safety, and a too big to fail firm that got all kinds of breaks from the state (including protection from competitors) and still screwed up badly enough to kill hundreds of people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 28 2020, @07:01AM
Reading over this crap again. The "right to be greedy" is actually deeper than mere legislation. It covers things like freedom of speech and the rights to a fair trial, which usually are constitutionally mandated in democracies. It covers all rights that enable us to act on our own rather than at the behest of others.
To defend others who say and do the wrong things using these freedoms, or who are massively unpopular (say because they're rich), takes a pretty strong moral character. I hope you one day can develop that character or at least learn to respect it in others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @03:16AM (1 child)
It was a dark and stormy night...
Thanks Obama!
And you too, Jimmy Cartier! For all that nice de-regulation
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @05:25PM
More like thanks Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Carter may have done air but both parties fucked up.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday January 27 2020, @11:42AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday January 27 2020, @06:49AM
No engineer would have connected only one sensor when a backup sensor already exists on the aircraft. That bit could only have been part of management's plan to minimize changes to avoid triggering regulatory requirements.