Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max, NY Times
“The most damaging messages included conversations among Boeing pilots and other employees about software issues and other problems with flight simulators for the Max, a plane later involved in two accidents, in late 2018 and early 2019, that killed 346 people and threw the company into chaos. The employees appear to discuss instances in which the company concealed such problems from the F.A.A. during the regulator’s certification of the simulators, which were used in the development of the Max, as well as in training for pilots who had not previously flown a 737.”
Boeing releases internal messages on 737 MAX, calls them ‘completely unacceptable”
“Boeing Co on Thursday released hundreds of internal messages that raise serious questions about its development of simulators and the 737 MAX that was grounded in March after two fatal crashes, prompting outrage from U.S. lawmakers. In an April 2017 exchange of instant messages, two employees expressed complaints about the MAX following references to issues with the plane’s flight management computer. “This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” one unnamed employee wrote. In one message dated November 2015, which appears to shed light on lobbying methods used when facing demands from regulators, a Boeing employee notes regulators were likely to want simulator training for a particular type of cockpit alert.”
Boeing’s 737/Starliner/SLS Problem Strategy: Blame The Media
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Boeing’s Starliner Mission Flops Due To A Broken Clock
Boeing Apparently Disagrees With NASA OIG Commercial Crew Report
And NASA was worried about SpaceX just because Elon Musk smoked a marijuana cigarette on TV…
Misplaced priorities for sure.
Look at it from the perspective of following rules. There is a law against smoking marijuana, especially if you’ve got a position of responsibility with a government contractor. The CEO of such a company doing so is not only not following the rules, but also setting a bad example for his employees.
In contrast, a bunch of managers and executives holding meetings is perfectly legal. If the result of those meetings is a really stupid decision, well, that’s also perfectly legal. It isn’t illegal unless someone can prove they deliberately decided to put people at risk or deceive a government regulator. That’s extremely hard to prove. They can just say, “we talked about it and decided this was safe.” and “Since we decided it was safe, there was no reason to send the FAA a bunch of details they didn’t need to worry about.” Proving things like that are malice rather than stupidity isn’t easy. And, as long as it’s stupidity, it’s not a criminal offense. (Although the door is open to civil suits.)
So, if some official is very interested in people following the rules and not as concerned about people doing a good job or getting things done, what would you expect? (And, as “Winner” pointed out, yes, that is a matter of priorities. This example isn’t the order I’d personally put priorities in…)
True, and your analysis illustrates exactly why SpaceX, which focuses on outcomes, is out performing NASA and Old Space, which are focused on procedures and staying “within the lines”, in developing new technology.
For example the tank bursting on the Starship Mk1 a few week ago. NASA would spend a year or more analyzing it to understand what happened and write a big report on it. By contrast Elon Musk just went down to Boca Chica over Christmas, worked with his team there, and if the tests conducted yesterday are any indication, solved the problem so Starship is able to move forward.
You keep forgetting that SpaceX really has no one to answer to but themselves when they have failures.. Meanwhile, NASA has roughly 435 people they have to answer to, and who really drive the Agency’s direction.
Arrogance at the Contractors, I am shocked! I saw somewhere that Boeing was lobbying Congress to be part of the performance reviews of FAA employees. Boeing was also apparently getting rid of senior engineers due to cost and the maturity of their product. Maybe NASA should take note.
Oh this one keeps coming around every few years. I remember when I was a baby engineer we had ‘expert systems’ giving the penny-pinchers paroxysms of glee. Whole cadres of senior engineers had their brains mined and dumped into ‘intelligent databases’. Then they themselves were let go as unnecessary cost units. The whole new generation of us had to learn again what had been learned already but this time in a context free environment and the expert systems were quietly relegated to the circular folder. I always wondered if they were actually intended for use or were always just a stalking horse to cut the expensive engineers.
I am sure we will see it again in a few years when AI starts to gain traction. We will roll it out and name it something else and this time it will be my turn to get my noggin squeezed, then sent to the beach and the BYTs in my offices will be left to fend for themselves while I join the throngs squeezing the life out of their tax dollars… Plus ça change?
Just three days ago Boeing finally decided that 737 NG pilots will need simulator training prior to flying the 737 MAX. Up until now in spite of everything that has happened they had still been holding out that pilots making the transition only needed an iPad course to be able to fly the MAX. That was the original reason for MCAS to avoid the necessity for additional simulator training, which would save airlines a considerable amount of money and also improve the logistics of pilot scheduling, thus adding a key selling point to the MAX. Their argument until last Tuesday has been that now that the oversights with MCAS have been corrected they can continue with this policy,
To their credit they made the recent decision on their own after conducting tests with pilots and realizing that pilots will not always react correctly in an emergency situation without additional simulator training. If we want to be cynical we could suspect that Boeing was aware that this would likely become mandatory by the FAA anyway and decided to get out ahead of it. But either way at least they are doing the right thing. And just maybe it is evidence of a change in culture, although it is too soon to tell.
“If we want to be cynical we could suspect that Boeing was aware that this would likely become mandatory by the FAA anyway and decided to get out ahead of it.”
Call me cynical. These recent news reports of internal communications within Boeing regarding the development of the 737 MAX support my cynicism, IMHO.
From a news article on the memos:
“….said a 2018 message.”
“Another exchange between Boeing employees, from August 2015 …..”
“In 2017, a Boeing employee wrote……”
I am referring to a decision that Boeing announced on January 7th, 2020. I am not arguing against cynicism I am just trying to be objective. If we are going to criticize the mistakes we should also acknowledge when things are done right, and consider that it is possible that this is evidence of a change in culture, although as I said it is too soon to tell. Note also that change does not mean perfection, in this context it means improvement. What is not known yet is how much of an improvement we might see. But considering the important role that Boeing plays I certainly am hopefully that there will be substantial improvements.
Maybe not cynical but possibly damage control. yes, Boeing wanted to avoid the costs and other issues with sim training. The MAX and the NG are (presumably) very similar is handling and cockpit interfaces; there is clearly a case for no sim training. In the light of the accidents I think this conclusion (adding sim training) is inescapable.
I think the lag in launching the MAX points to concerns about the technical problems of the MAX and ultimately Boeing close to counter Airbus with a similar engine upgrade rather than commit to a clean sheet design which would have been years late to market.
A hackneyed expression but the MAX is probably “one engine upgrade too far”.
Yeah I think maybe decision makers should have resisted and said we can’t really hack this thing together like this. And beyond that, some decision makers should have called for really scrutinizing the testing and qualification after seeing what a big opening for problems the MCAS may create. I guess I don’t know the details, but when developing software I do have a sense of what choices can lead to further issues down the road and which choices can create bigger exposure issues than others. This one just sounded like one of those that could cause a lot and required absolute certainty for success.
The question that I don’t know and maybe no one but Boeing knows is whether the business case for the MAX would have still been good even if they knew from the beginning that the MAX would require a different type rating. It certainly would not have been as good, but maybe it still would have been considered a better short and long term solution than building a clean sheet aircraft now instead of later (long term advantage would be improved technology available when MAX production ends).
Likely they would have discussed this with airlines to find out how many sales might be lost by creating a new type rating. Southwest for sure would be concerned as their entire fleet is currently one type rating which is part of their efficiency strategy. Although I would guess that this efficiency comes at the cost of some flexibility in route management, but so far this is what seems to work best for Southwest. Of course even a clean sheet airplane would affect Southwest, probably even more so than a new type rating for the 737 which presumably will require less training for certification of existing 737 pilots than would be required on a clean sheet, but that I don’t know. Either way it’s what Southwest and other airlines will now have to deal with.
True. My thought is there is probably room in between what they did and a clean sheet design, which still would have been a much more cohesive overall design (not a hack job requiring correcting pitch), though that would have required the more review and training and whatever.
The same company who not only f’d up the 737MAX, but missed a parachute attachment and had a catastrophic timing problem on their new capsule. Doesn’t look good. We aren’t getting enough for the enormous sums of money we are paying them (way more than we’re paying SpaceX).
To quote our President…”Yuge!”
Hopefully that 11 hour MET clock offset for starliner won’t be the tip of an iceberg for issues. Now all those reports of SLS software issues seem more worrying.
There’s a follow-up article on this in the NY Times. I also saw an article in the Washington Post on January 9th about the partially successful mission of Starliner and the question whether NASA would require an unmanned retest. Both articles would lead one to conclude that there are areas in Boeing that seem to be making poor decisions when evaluating risk, notably, the reward of spending more money to insure safety vs. the risk of the being less profitable.
Given this, there’s no way Starliner should fly with astronauts until a successful automated docking is achieved.
This is probably the only way to restore trust – not between Boeing and the public, but between the engineers of the company and their senior management.
This also fits in to a pattern of safety behavior at Boeing that is emerging. A FAA Press Release.
https://www.faa.gov/news/pr…
Press Release – FAA Proposes $5.4 Million Civil Penalty Against The Boeing Co.
January 10, 2020
Contact: Lynn Lunsford
“WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposes a $5.4 million civil penalty against The Boeing Co. for allegedly installing nonconforming slat tracks on approximately 178 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which Boeing subsequently presented as ready for airworthiness certification.
This proposed civil penalty is in addition to a previously proposed civil penalty of more than $3.9 million against Boeing for allegedly installing the same nonconforming components on approximately 133 Boeing 737 NG aircraft. The FAA sent that letter to Boeing in early December.”
And further on
“The FAA further alleges that Boeing knowingly submitted aircraft for
final FAA airworthiness certification after determining that the parts
could not be used due to a failed strength test.”
So Boeing appears to have allowed non-spec parts to be used on 311 B737 aircraft…
You have to wonder now if this type of behavior is related in any way to the parachute anomaly and the timer issue. Or is it is just something that hasn’t shown itself yet on the Starliner.
It is one thing to be a clown and still have a pure heart, it’s another to certify an aircraft that has non-spec parts installed.
I’m not sure what to make of this. At the very least it appears top come from a quite limited number of people. For Keith to say that “The Boeing Company Has A Big Safety Culture Problem” is a bit dramatic and quite possible wrong. I’d like to see many more facts before I am willing to dismiss an historically important and industry- leading company like Boeling.
And another thing: people like to complain when we find contaminated lettuce, our when a big company captures a regulatory agency.
I don’t know exactly what the big surprise might be? Congress starves these agencies, year after year, after year. There’s the claim that government is ‘bloated’. Or that private industry somehow knows best. Or other claims that are simply thinly-disguised objections to profit at any cost and the public be damned from folks that believe government is fundamentally evil. And now we have the Executive revamping environmental laws. Again, unsurprising results.
This kind of behavior is predictable.Those of you out there that think “government is the problem”? You are to blame for the mess: for every polluted stream, for every E. coli outbreak, and for every damn crashed jet.
You want to fix the problems we all share? Start by supporting the important work of regulatory agencies that work to create a level playing field for every American enterprise.
As a former BDS (Boeing Defense Space Security division) guy, I will say this – I did NOT see the level of carelessness displayed by the BCA employees in the sourced communications.