Patrick Shanahan: Pentagon chief's ties to Boeing investigated
The Pentagon has launched an inquiry into acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan for alleged favouritism to his ex-employer, Boeing. The Defence Department's inspector general will look into the matter following a complaint from a watchdog group.
Mr Shanahan is accused of frequently praising Boeing in meetings about government contracts and acquisitions. Mr Shanahan, who denies any wrongdoing, spent 30 years at Boeing. He rose through the ranks to become a senior executive at the world's biggest planemaker.
Last week Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Pentagon inspector general about Mr Shanahan.
[...] The inquiry casts a shadow over Mr Shanahan as the White House considers whether to formally nominate him to fill the defence secretary post left vacant by Jim Mattis, who stepped down in December.
Boeing is already under pressure after the deadly crash of one of its 737 Max 8 passenger jets in Ethiopia last week.
Also at NYT.
See also: How Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan May Have Promoted Boeing Over Competitors
Related: DoJ Issues Subpoenas in 737 Max Investigation
Related Stories
Justice Department issues subpoenas in criminal investigation of Boeing
US Justice Department prosecutors have issued multiple subpoenas as part of an investigation into Boeing's Federal Aviation Administration certification and marketing of 737 Max planes, sources briefed on the matter told CNN.
[...] Criminal investigators have sought information from Boeing on safety and certification procedures, including training manuals for pilots, along with how the company marketed the new aircraft, the sources said.
It's not yet clear what possible criminal laws could be at issue in the probe. Among the things the investigators are looking into is the process by which Boeing itself certified the plane as safe, and the data it presented the FAA about that self-certification, the sources said.
The FBI Seattle office and Justice Department's criminal division in Washington are leading the investigation.
See also: FAA: Boeing 737 MAX to get software update
Europe and Canada Just Signaled They Don't Trust the FAA's Investigation of the Boeing 737 MAX
Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet
When Boeing broke ground on its new factory near Charleston in 2009, the plant was trumpeted as a state-of-the-art manufacturing hub, building one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. But in the decade since, the factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner, has been plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety.
A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of internal emails, corporate documents and federal records, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, reveals a culture that often valued production speed over quality. Facing long manufacturing delays, Boeing pushed its work force to quickly turn out Dreamliners, at times ignoring issues raised by employees.
Complaints about the frenzied pace echo broader concerns about the company in the wake of two deadly crashes involving another jet, the 737 Max. Boeing is now facing questions about whether the race to get the Max done, and catch up to its rival Airbus, led it to miss safety risks in the design, like an anti-stall system that played a role in both crashes.
Safety lapses at the North Charleston plant have drawn the scrutiny of airlines and regulators. Qatar Airways stopped accepting planes from the factory after manufacturing mishaps damaged jets and delayed deliveries. Workers have filed nearly a dozen whistle-blower claims and safety complaints with federal regulators, describing issues like defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. Others have sued Boeing, saying they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
Joseph Clayton, a technician at the North Charleston plant, one of two facilities where the Dreamliner is built, said he routinely found debris dangerously close to wiring beneath cockpits. "I've told my wife that I never plan to fly on it," he said. "It's just a safety issue."
Related: Boeing 737 Max Aircraft Grounded in the U.S. and Dozens of Other Countries
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's Ties to Boeing Under Investigation
Initial Findings Put Boeing's Software at Center of Ethiopian 737 Crash
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 24 2019, @07:13AM (16 children)
Everyone who is even remotely related to the military industrial complex needs to be investigated. I am so, so sick of the tail wagging the dog. That complex lobbies for wars and interventions that are meaningless to us, the taxpaying citizens, who the government supposedly represents.
Investigate them all, burn a few at the stake, publicly execute a few hundred by less torturous means, and imprison a few thousand for rehabilitation and reeducation. It doesn't even matter if you catch all the guilty, or even if you execute a few innocent people. Use it to put the fear of God and the American Taxpayer into all the rest.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:13AM
Get out of the way! I can't see the TV!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:01AM (4 children)
I don't know how far this guy went, but if you used to work for a good employer it's not entirely unreasonable to say good things about them later on. I used to work for a pretty good company until I moved to another city and have nothing but good things to say about them, they treated their employees well and made decent-quality products. I'm not trying to sell them to anyone, just remembering they were a good company to work for. So "frequently praising Boeing" wouldn't be that different from me "frequently praising my former employer", at least if their name comes up in conversation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @01:44PM (1 child)
As an example, a counter-argument is that he is now a customer, a role he has not had any experience before.
So if he lets his experience as an employee cloud his judgment when in a completely different position as a customer is at least a lapse of judgment.
Just as it would be a lapse of judgment if you made purchasing decisions purely or primarily based on whether some company treated you well as an employee...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:37PM
Boeing: known to be good
Others: unknown
It is good judgement to go with the safe bet. Given that he was a senior executive, this isn't just "treated you well as an employee". He knows how the sausage is made at Boeing.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:12PM (1 child)
The big players in the military industrial complex, such as Boeing, have very douchebaggy cultures and attract very douchebaggy people. I'd like to think that it's because of all the ex-military working there but still cannot be sure.
Anyway, given that it's safe to say that douchebags would praise places of douchebag culture.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday March 25 2019, @02:06AM
Can you use more precise terminology?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:34PM (1 child)
Yup! The first war that comes up, they and their spouses and children should be the first on the front lines: THEN you'd see a lot of wars not happening.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 25 2019, @12:21AM
Well, you know, many of them are Chickenhawks. Just one of many hypocrisies of which they are guilty.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:50PM (6 children)
I don't disagree with your sentiment, apart from the public execution bit, unless you're using hyperbole, in which case great!
The whole military-industrial complex is just another example of how the US government is run by and for corporate interests.
At this point I suppose some sort of revolution is the only way of ordinary Americans getting any sort of change, although a few states seceding might help. I have no idea how likely either of those are though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 25 2019, @01:21AM (5 children)
I have always wondered at the callous disregard for human life that is implicit in so much warmongering. Particularly obtuse are the guys who are so pro-life when it comes to abortion, but are such war hawks when it comes to profit.
And yet, it does make a certain evil sense. If genocide is merely competition, albeit of the no holds barred variety, then being pro-life is merely an evilly cynical and sensible means of assuring the war machine has an ample supply of fresh, new soldiers. And so there is no contradiction or hypocrisy in being both pro-life and a war hawk. But they'd rather not be outed for being evil bastards, so they'll accept being labeled as stupid hypocrites if that lets them dodge the worse label.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:59AM (3 children)
All-natural competition is less evil then self-sacrifice. If you aren't fighting to win, no holds barred, you are losing. When you lose, your neighbors and family members also lose and are thus destroyed by your actions.
That said, "pro-life" and "war hawk" don't go together much anymore. Have you been in a coma for a decade? Our current president is pro-life and has been trying to get out of various wars that the previous president was happy to inflame. The other party bitches about leaving Syria and having peace talks with Kim Jong-Un!!! The candidate we didn't elect was pro-abortion to an extreme, loved to inflame and fight all over the Middle East, and was happy to risk starting World War III with Russia.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 25 2019, @03:47AM (2 children)
> If you aren't fighting to win, no holds barred, you are losing.
There it is. Zero sum thinking.
> Our current president is pro-life and has been trying to get out of various wars
If he can get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq, to name the 2 biggest entanglements and endless wars the US is still in, and not get us into anything new, even if it's by accident and dumb luck that it happens, then I'll think better of him. But it looks scarily doubtful. In fact, what looks most likely is that they want to make the Middle East a whole lot worse. They think in terms of 2000 year old Biblical prophecies about the End Times, and want to participate. That's fucking scary. They ache to pick a fight with Iran. They want to bring on the Clash of Civilizations, start up Crusades 2.0. Ultimately, some of them sound like they want to bring about nuclear Armageddon. As to leaving Syria, he just declared that the Israeli occupied Syrian territory known as the Golan Heights belongs to Israel! Fortunately, there are huge impediments to these vague war plans, not least their own incompetence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:14AM (1 child)
Lots of things, not exactly zero-sum, are close enough that the difference doesn't matter. Never mind the precise distinction. Would we be better off or worse off with an extra 10 million diseased and uneducated people in the USA, most of whom believe that LGBT should be thrown from high places? Would we be better off or worse off if the countries of origin for these people are able to breed another billion of them?
You can skip the whole Biblical prophecy angle, being a total non-believer, and still realize that a deadly clash of civilizations is unavoidable. The smart move is to get the conflict over before completely losing the advantage of strength. Denying the issue is at best like denying that Hitler was a problem on the eve of World War II, trying to appease him instead of preparing for the fight. Some leaders get it; when Egypt amassed forced to invade Israel, Israel didn't wait for the strike.
Peace requires that the facts on the ground be accepted in the Golan Heights. Until that is fully accepted by all involved, there can at best be a ceasefire. That said, a temporary ceasefire is still all you can get from Islam. Muhammed used ceasefires to build his strength and come back for the kill, and all Muslims are expected to use this technique.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday March 25 2019, @11:46AM
All this clash of civilizations is BS. Morons like you have never met a muslim in your life. Osama bin Laden and the jihadists were funded and celebrated during the Soviet/Afghanistan war as pious non commies. Afterwards when they dried to bring militant islam to their home countries they were rejected. 9/11 was a desperate pathetic last throw of a failed movement. The neocons saw an opportunity to boost their flagging Haliburton and Boeing shares, and span the bullshit many still lick up. They responded exactly the way a mostly-powerless terrorist would wish ie. overreact. If your home town got bombed because you were the same religion as the Lords Resistance Army I'm sure the odd youth in your neighbourhood might develop militant religion too. That's certainly been the pattern for hundreds of years in Ireland for instance. The British sorted it with a bit of "stiff upper lip", non response to terror, and negotiation. The Bush whitehouse responded like schoolgirls to a cockroach - widespread destruction without actually killing the object of their ire (at least for quite some time). It took Japan years of grinding war to become powerless enough to drive planes into stuff. Now hoards of weak betas... the types who dress in cardboard armor and LARP on the weekend... talk about clashes of civilizations and vote in morons from both parties who push that narrative. You condemn the US to be abandoned by erstwhile allies (eg. Europe siding with Iran). You're being fleeced by ex-Boeing and ex-Haliburton execs into becoming a banana republic - a sea of disenfranchised poverty managed by an incompetent elite.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 25 2019, @03:40AM
Being pro-life means standing up for innocents. It's an indication that some people believe that you should have an opportunity to do wrong, before being punished for doing wrong. Only after a person proves himself evil, should he be punished, and/or executed. Dick Cheney comes readily to mind.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 25 2019, @04:25PM
It does matter, if you execute a few innocent people. I for one, would much prefer to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free, than erroneously putting an innocent person into prison / executing them.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:32AM
Just transfer Mr. Shanahan. Put him in charge of the FAA. Problem solved.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Sunday March 24 2019, @10:49AM (3 children)
Who is left for Boeing to compete with once you insist on American suppliers?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:14PM
Actually that's a surprisingly fair point. US Aerospace is monopolized by a few key players each dominating a different field so you can't really avoid having regulatory capture when all the industry experts work for the same two or three employers if you source exclusively from the US.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:41PM (1 child)
SpaceX, if it's for space launches. And there are other providers of military planes, surprisingly.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @08:07PM
If you want a medium or small aircraft, supersonic or stealth, with all the latest goodies, you have 3 choices: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman.
If you want a missile or small drone, add Raytheon, so 4 choices: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon.
If you want a simple little subsonic aircraft, instead add Textron, so 4 choices again: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Textron.
If you want something big, Boeing is the only choice. The L1011 is long gone, and the C-5 Galaxy is a design from a different era. Refueling planes, AWACS, JSTARS, large cargo planes, VIP transport... all Boeing, Boeing, Boeing, Boeing, Boeing.
Until crazy Elon Musk crashed the party, it was also very bad for space launches. United Launch Alliance was a merger designed to eliminate competition.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:06PM (1 child)
wow, a company that makes so many different things and that if a flaw is found in one end of the
production spectrum automatically allows to draw the conclusion that every other product is flawed too
has either a magical management philosophy or is a one man company or is "made in chinAHAHAHA" ^_^
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:18PM
Id much rather they fuck up with their Naurus units rather than fucking up large aircraft -- and apparently their major malfunction with the design was so it ultimately could be more fuel-efficient. Save a few pennies for the carriers, kill a few hundred people and damage their brand name for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, I don't know if this is true, but what apparently happened was that they wanted desperately to use more efficient engines which were a bit large. They couldn't raise the ground clearance of the plane by lengthening the landing gear, so they made the nacelle pylons shorter. That caused a problem, and to remedy that problem they moved the nacelles more forward. That caused instability with respect to the pitch axis, hence the software fix to the anti-stall system that had no idea what the fuck it was doing.
It was band-aid fix on top of band-aid fix on top of band-aid fix...just to save the carriers a few fucking bucks on fuel costs.