> Why did Boeing buy McDonnell-Douglas? Because the airplane manufacturing industry is consolidating, and Boeing is pursuing profit at the expense of human lives.
Was it really necessary to add the second part to explain why the merger occured? 'industry is consolidating' seems reason enough. The mixing of explanation with moralism in every sentence is grating. Put the moralism and ethics in it's own paragraph so we can understand the explanation first. If it's all mixed up, then I have to evaluate every claim in the article as if it might be ethical statements by the author instead of focusing on understanding first, and then considering the ethical outcome after having attained the understanding.
I'm almost certain "expense of human lives" didn't come up as a factor on any of the merger pitch decks. Frankly its a huge leap to see that a merger of two successful and relatively safe aircraft manufacturers would be intentionally at the expense of human lives.
Interesting. I see the same default response to accidents in self-driving cars. It's because the driver didn't have their hands on the wheel. It's because the driver fell asleep.
If you're referring to Tesla's Autopilot, Tesla's legal stance has always been very clear - you are driving the car and it is your responsibility to pay attention. Now their marketing is very different and confuses people and I can understand why people would think otherwise, but Tesla has never waivered from "it's your fault, not ours" when something goes wrong.
So yes, if you fall asleep or don't have your hands on the wheel while driving, it is your fault for being a shitty driver. I hate how Tesla has marketed Autopilot, but I cannot feel bad for the people stupid enough to fall asleep at the wheel.
And when it's the marketing department saying "X" in big print in flashy brochures and ads, and the legal department and their small print saying "not X in ways that kill purchasers expecting X", I'd expect company officers to be facing jail time.
I'd love for Tesla to be transparent about this as well, but the onus is on the driver to understand how their car works. Maybe we need higher standards for getting a driver's license.
Why does Tesla get a pass in terms of pitching that their system is something that it isn't except in the obligatory fine print?
Hell, both Boeing and Tesla can be said to have indulged in the same sin: not accurately communicating the nature and capabilities of their product to the end user
Taking the viewpoint that caveat emptor absolves the manufacturer of any complicity in mass producing and delivering for use dangerous systems without clearly communicating the underlying implementation details to a reasonable operator is just beyond naieve to the point of asking bad actors to take these types of risks in the least responsible way possible. In fact, the only reason Boeing is getting slammed so hard and Tesla isn't is entirely due to extra regulatory burden that aircraft manufacturers have to deal with that automotive don't.
Now, I personally take the onus of understanding my vehicle seriously, but not everyone does, and nevertheless, they still must be able to drive. Therefore I personally hold manufacturer's responsible for being good corporate citizens and not indulging in deceptive practices.
Not that that gets me or anyone else anywhere. It's the principle of the thing though.
> Why does Tesla get a pass in terms of pitching that their system is something that it isn't except in the obligatory fine print?
Because we're talking about legality, not morality. I have said in my original comment I hate how Tesla markets this, but that does not absolve the driver of responsibility for piloting their multi-ton metal box at high velocity on public roads. What you're effectively saying is you want some entity, likely the government, to hold Tesla accountable for their claims. Except you will never find an official statement from Tesla saying you can drive without paying attention (there are numerous unofficial statements, and even a video of Elon Musk personally demonstrating the technology without paying attention on national TV) - so it's a question of proving fraud at that point. And proving fraud is an insanely difficult process, because you have to prove intent. Even proving neglect in this instance is challenging. I do wish there were more stringent regulations about advertising for driver-assist systems, but currently they do not exist.
Yes, in a perfect world, I would love for Tesla to not get away with this shit. But rather than only blame Tesla, perhaps we should recognize that driving is a privilege, not a right. You have to pass a test to get your driver's license. You are responsible for the car so long as you are driving. If you are so easily duped that you can be dissuaded otherwise, you are likely not fit to be a safe driver.
Ultimately what I care about is how safe the roads are. I care much less about pointing the finger. Tesla deserves criticism for their disingenuous marketing, but so do lazy drivers who literally fall asleep at the wheel without even checking to see if that's okay.
What do you base the "active" part of your assertion on?
I'm curious, because what I've read as a layman led me to believe Boeing legitimately didn't know how dangerous it was and their processes/culture helped undermine facilitating a better understanding. Still not good, but a different world than actively deceiving regulators. It almost seems like their cognitive biases deceived themselves
“Onus” is an exclusive term. It’s on one party, or another.
Onus does not apply to the safety of consumer products. For example, it is the responsibility of an automobile owner to drive a car with brakes in good working condition. Period.
But it is also the responsibility of an automobile manufacturer to issue a recall and fix faulty brakes in a car they sell.
It’s not an either-or. We don’t say, “Because the onus is on the driver to drive a safe vehicle, there is no fault to be laid at the manufacturer’s door. Caveat emptor.” We hold both parties responsible to some degree or other.
In sum, yes, drivers are supposed to know the limitations of their equipment and operate it responsibly. But also yes, manufacturers have responsibilities around the safety of the hardware and software they sell to people to operate as motor vehicles.
The driver’s responsibility does not absolve the manufacturer of its responsibilities.
I agree that higher standards for getting (and keeping) driver's licenses is a good thing to discuss. (It's political suicide, which is why it never gets acted upon in spite of the thousands of road deaths every year.)
But I think the solution to the problem describe upthread is more along the lines of "we need higher standards of truth in advertising".
While I agree that "the onus is on the driver to understand how their car works" - I think it's entirely understandable that drivers base that understanding on what the sales guy and marketing team told them when they researched and bought it, and that if they use works like "self driving" and "autonomous" and "autopilot" that it's reasonable for drivers to interpret them in their commonly understood meanings. Disclaimers in legal documentation redefining commonly understood English words are _not_ OK in my opinion.
Luckily the modern automobile is so simple in all its functionality that anyone who wishes to purchase one can learn everything about the workings in a half hour over coffee!
Of course it did, but it was probably spelled differently, like “a merger would enhance our ability to fight regulation”. The regulations being things like “you have to have planes that don’t rapidly fly into the ground for no reason” etc.
There are many thousands if not millions of humans involved. Successful business affects so many even far removed from the company. Large companies like these are often heavily invested by institutional investors covering many of the populations pensions.
If you drove to the store in a car you knew had faulty brakes and killed someone: yes you would be pursuing milk at the expense of human lives. And I guarantee you if they could prove you knew your brakes were bad, the punishment would absolutely be worse than if you just had an unpreventable accident.
This assumes Boeing had a priori knowledge that the system would cause a crash.
The fact that the system safety analysis didn't label it 'catastrophic' seems to indicate they didn't know this. This doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that they should have, or that they still didn't follow their design procedures stating redundant senaors
“I didn’t KNOW removing three of the four brakes on my car would cause a crash” is an argument you could make. I wouldn’t want to stake my freedom on it.
That's assuming you are making a connection between brakes and a catastrophic failure.
The fact the system safety analysis didn't call out an MCAS failure as catastrophic seems to indicate they misunderstood the system risk which is different than claiming a catastrophic failure is an acceptable risk
Yes. Driving is dangerous. Our society has just deemed its danger acceptable even though we know how many people die because we are so dependent on cars. This is the grim fact of the matter.
It's like going to get milk every day for 20 years, then deciding to let your sometimes reliable brother get milk for you because it's cheaper, and after they kill people in a wreck getting milk you keep on letting them get milk for you.
Not trying to be a Boeing apologist, but if the bar is "zero risk" almost no business plan in industry would be implemented.
They have to acknowledge at some point that lives may be at risk in their business. Whether or not that risk level is a acceptable and that they properly gauge that risk 8s another matter
It's retroactively true with knowledge current events, but does not answer the question 'Why did Boeing buy McDonnell-Douglas?' at that point in history with respect to "at the expense of human lives"
Lets do a thought experiment, what would Boeing do about this situation if their feet weren't being held to the fire, what did they do with their initial knowledge of it?
I don't disagree, it is grating, but I read it more as an observation than as an intent.
When you are in senior management, you make decisions based on their overall effect on the company's financial health or future growth. That is your job, just like it is the engineer's job to make decisions based on overall safety and reliability or future capability.
The debate, or perhaps the proof, is what happens next. Every decision, engineering or management, needs to be evaluated post implementation to evaluate its effectiveness. Are we better off financially? Are we more capable? Is this system more reliable? Is this system easier to change while continuing to validate it is meeting its design goals?
Both management and engineering resist having their decisions "colored" by their negative impact from the "other" group. Engineers don't like it when their clearly correct decision is overridden by management's feeling it doesn't make "business" sense (which is usually code for it reduces margins unacceptably). And management doesn't like it when their decision is negated by engineering telling them it will cause their products to become unacceptably unreliable or unsafe.
In a properly functioning company it is the role of executive management to combine both the needs of engineering and the needs of the business into an effective outcome that everyone can live with and keeps the company alive.
Articles on the acquisition suggest that Boeing acquired MD both because the industry was consolidating and because MD was making more money per plane than Boeing was. They wanted both the customer base of MD and the "DNA" or managerial understanding of how to build planes that were more profitable. Here in hindsight the implication is that the additional profit margin came from skimping on safety and reliability engineering.
At some point, there was no doubt a review on the 737-MAX, where the engineering teams raised concerns about MCAS and the impact on safety and reliability. And the costs associated with addressing those concerns were also discussed, both cost to implement and time to market costs. The result of that review was to pursue certification on their plan of record and to not incur the additional certification and time to market costs that engineering advocated were needed.
That decision was explicitly the pursuit of profit margin at the expense of product safety and reliability. As human lives are transitively related to safety and reliability of the aircraft, it is a reasonable statement to make about pursuing profit at the expense of human lives. That is what the equations reduce to.
>When you are in senior management, you make decisions based on their overall effect on the company's financial health or future growth. That is your job, just like it is the engineer's job to make decisions based on overall safety and reliability or future capability.
I find this statement very troubling. You seem to be absolving the corporate/C-level class of any moral or ethical culpability when it comes to the consequences of their decisions, so long as "it makes business sense".
My intent is not to absolve anyone of anything. Rather I was illustrating the process by which individual choices can lead to a collective decision of prioritizing profits over safety.
It should be possible to screw workers without endangering lives or the bottom line. Boeing did that long time. So did Airbus, GE Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Bombardier.
An excellent point, I start to lose interest when reading conflation of fact and opinion as well. You know, it's comments like this that make me appreciate this community that much more.
It’s a hyperbolic statement. Boeing employees and engineers also fly on those planes with their families. It isn’t like they are making decisions with the intent of compromising safety.
> It isn’t like they are making decisions with the intent of compromising safety.
That really is actually exactly what they did and are doing. When you don’t do tests because you are confident something will pass, that doesn’t change that you aren’t testing, and you are compromising quality on the basis of productivity.
Here Boeing decided to go against the safe practice because that would have classified the plane as a different plane and incurred huge costs, but it would have increased safety and likely avoided the accidents.
They did compromise safety, they did so thinking that it wouldn’t matter because the overall safety would be good enough for no one to notice, but that gamble failed and others paid their lives to cover the bet.
MD-11 and now MAX raise questions on the execution of that. Pilots have to understand the how and why the different thing can fly like the old thing so that when something goes wrong and that invariant is inevitably violated, they aren't caught off guard.
Since the advent of powered flight controls, they've been shaped to give desired handling characteristics. For example, in the 70's control forces were lightened considerably to accommodate female pilots, though many were concerned this would lead to overcontrolling the airplane by the male pilots.
Human factors design is nowhere near easy or settled science, not in iphone design nor in flight controls design.
>Human factors design is nowhere near easy or settled science, not in iphone design nor in flight controls design.
Given.
The issue I keep coming back to is the flawed regard for human factors in MCAS. They paid enough attention to squeak by the artificial feel, but then completely ignored the fact that a pilot can't react or stay ahead of something on a plane that no one tells them even exists. Then when it became evident it might be a problem, they back pedaled, putting as much blame on the operators as they could.
They thought about it. They decided "Nah, they don't need to know." At some point the tech pilot even expressed concerns over the system, yet was still pressured to keep it out of the manual...why?
No one in good faith has anything to gain from that system's implementation details seeing the light of day. Unless of course, there was some other motivation, like avoiding the costs of compliance at some point.
Boeing relied on the pilot noticing runaway stabilizer and doing what they're trained to do on runaway stabilizer - turn off the trim motors.
The first of the 3 sets of pilots did this, and landed without incident.
The next set overrode MCAS successfully 25 times, inexplicably did not turn off the trim, did not override it the last time, and crashed.
The last set successfully countered MCAS twice, then turned off the trim. They did not follow the directions on Boeing's Flight Crew Operations Manual Bulletin: "Uncommanded Nose-Down Stabilizer Trim Due to Erroneous Angle Of Attack During Manual Flight Only", which the FAA turned into a mandatory emergency airworthiness directive.
>The first of the 3 sets of pilots did this, and landed without incident.
Extra pilot in cockpit. Not a CRM situation that's a given.
>The next set overrode MCAS successfully 25 times, inexplicably did not turn off the trim, did not override it the last time, and crashed.
They didn't know why the trim was kicking in in the first place, and the senior pilot was the one countering the trim. He handed it off to the junior pilot to sift through the manual, which ironically, would have been futile anyway as MCAS was dropped from the manual. The behavior did not present as a classic stabilizer runaway. Other pilots interviewed also pointed this out including in the Australian 60 minutes expose on the 737 MAX if I recall correctly, so I'm not sure that the same definition you're fond of is universally shared amongst pilots. Bad priming is also a human factor that is catastrophically lacking among other things not being taken into account.
Furthermore, if pilots were really held to account for knowing the hardware they're operating, they should have known the nature of the trim switch change between the 737 NG and MAX, and the consequences thereof; that wasn't included.
>The last set successfully countered MCAS twice, then turned off the trim. They did not follow the directions on Boeing's Flight Crew Operations Manual Bulletin: "Uncommanded Nose-Down Stabilizer Trim Due to Erroneous Angle Of Attack During Manual Flight Only", which the FAA turned into a mandatory emergency airworthiness directive.
They did follow it actually, but also notice the Note toward the end (see the appendix in the Ethiopian preliminary report. The line reads)
>Note: Initially higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT.
Now. There is something to be said for "Gee, did they read it", but considering the bloody thing includes a disclaimer that the AFM supersedes the bulletin due to not being approved by the FAA, the note being presented outside the main content of the directive, and the notification beeping issued in November, I don't have high hopes for the real effectiveness of the bulletin at clearly communicating the severity of the problem, something which simulator time would have made plain and obvious.
> They didn't know why the trim was kicking in in the first place
Unknown cause is symptomatic of runaway trim.
> The behavior did not present as a classic stabilizer runaway
How is runaway trim different from classic runaway trim? The trim was mysteriously turning on and trying to drive the nose into the ground. If that isn't runaway trim, I have no idea what runaway trim is.
BTW, I worked for 3 years on the Boeing 757 stabilizer trim gearbox. I know what runaway trim is. The cutoff switches are there as the last resort to stopping it, and they're prominently and conveniently on the center console for darn good reason.
> if pilots were really held to account for knowing the hardware they're operating
The point being, even if they knew what MCAS was, the corrective action is the exact same thing as in the instructions provided by Boeing, before and after the Lion Air crash.
> They did follow it actually
I'm glad you read it, but read it again. They did not follow it.
> clearly communicating the severity of the problem
Considering that it was an emergency mandatory notification, and the LA pilots had already crashed, I don't know how to harder communicate the severity. I'm not a pilot, but if I was a MAX pilot, I'd certainly not want to die the same way the LA pilots did, and I'd pay attention to an AD explaining how not to die.
But I do agree that evidently pilots needed more training to understand what to do about runaway trim, which they need to understand regardless of whether MCAS is causing the runaway trim or some other problem. There's a reason the runaway trim procedure is something that is a memory item, meaning pilots are supposed to know what to do about it without needing to consult the checklist. Training in this is clearly insufficient.
There's a level of engineering judgement involved here though.
If product A has passed testing and I made minor changes and made a product B if I can avoid running the whole battery of tests as if product B is brand new and not derivative then I totally will and Aerospace and Automotive operate like this all the time in every country in the world it's not poor practice.
Interesting side note, Boeing does make private jets - the Boeing Business Jet family[0].
But Boeing executives doesn't fly on these, since they're too large for even CEOs. Boeing executives fly on one of the three Boeing owned Bombardier Challenger 650s [1][2][3].
General aviation (private jets included) has a higher fatality rate than commercial aviation [1]. Even after backing out amateur general aviation, it is still more dangerous [2], though not egregiously so like personal planes, and helicopters make a sizeable chunk of fatality rate that is lumped into the same category as private jets.
But it is still poor optics to rarely dog food your own products.
I think there are a few other factors to take into account, such as private jets flying faster on average, no layovers, etc. Looking only at flight hours doesn't really show the risk for an individual (e.g. an exec choosing between commercial flights and private flights). My guess is that the average exec is about as likely to die from one vs the other since the exec would spend more time flying in the commercial jet.
So it's really not a fair comparison and I wouldn't be surprised if they're functionally equivalent after taking into account all major variables.
My comment is being misread — I said they don’t make decisions with the intent to compromise safety. I am not defending the decisions, but they aren’t actively trying to make unsafe planes in order to save money. It isn’t like they are doing what some car makers did where they judged the expense of a recall as cheaper than the litigation from deaths.
I read your comment and interpreted it as a misalignment of incentives in the context of informed decisions about risk.
The second part is key to me. Inadequate system safety analysis seemed to give them the green light in decisions to save money (or make more money with safety critical 'options'). It's not like they knew MCAS would have an out-sized chance of downing a plane. My guess is they didn't know what they didn't know and it led them to have overconfidence in their ability to properly gauge business/safety trade-offs
this is weak industry pr. the fact is that boeing did not have safety issues before finance took over, and that opening a non-union shop for the purpose of labor fungibility is going to result in less experienced workers with a lower stake on average. it doesn't even bother mentioning what i linked, which is that 2/3 of the informally surveyed employees lack confidence in the final product to the point that they wouldn't want their families to fly on the planes.
While that's a reasonable suspicion to have, the reporting in this case
is accurate.
I'm from Charleston, where the plant is located, & I have several friends that work at Boeing in assembly and quality inspection. What you see in the video is exactly the same sentiment I've heard for years.
The "industry" wasn't consolidating though. What industry? There were three larg(er) players (Airbus, Boeing, McDD) and a handful of small ones (deHavilland/Bombardier, Embraer, etc). What consolidation was happening in 'the industry' around that time?
Boeing started said consolidation itself by having McDD buy it Boeing with Boeing's money.
The consolidation the author is talking about is consolidation of defence aerospace contractors - Grumman, Northrup, McDonald Douglas and Boeing. McDonald Douglas was in some financial difficulties and the defence department encouraged the merger to keep them alive.
>The mixing of explanation with moralism in every sentence is grating.
At the fundamental level, Engineering is a social/ethical process, not a technical one. Yes, engineers tend to have technical skills but when you use those skills to design a bridge you must always keep society (the users of your product) at the forefront of your mind. What separates engineers from "skilled people" is professional ethics. An engineer (structural, software, aerospace, chemical or whatever) who does not consider the ethics of their work cannot credibly claim to be an engineer at all.
To "put the moralism and ethics in its own paragraph" is to sequester the ethical considerations somewhere where they can be conveniently ignored in service of the cult of CEO worship.
edit: Instead of anonymous downvotes, would anyone care to let me know why they find this comment so inappropriate for HN?
What would you call the process by which the defense sector designs and builds weapons? This cannot be "engineering" by your definition, as the people involved are not consulted on the foreign policy objectives their work will serve, but it's probably what others in the thread think the word means.
Even in bridge building, the balancing of human civilization's advantages against its environmental cost is a matter of public policy. Engineers may be consulted to assess environmental impact or to provide lower-impact options, but "should we have a bridge here or not" is ultimately a question for political leaders, not engineers.
I believe if you go back and read my comment you'll find I said engineers need to consider the ethical ramifications of their work.
I neither prescribed a particular ethical conclusion nor required consultation for my definition. There are lots of people who choose not to work in Defense because of the ethical considerations. There are others whose personal senses of ethics are not offended by the idea of making weapons, or at least are assuaged by the money. I would argue the same interplay between ethics and compensation is at work in e.g. Facebook and other surveillance firms. Quite obviously some people don't mind working for Facebook, even though I personally would find that repugnant.
What I'm not saying is that someone who works for Facebook "isn't an engineer" because I happen to disagree with their ethical choices. I'm saying that if you call yourself an engineer and you don't consider/ignore the ethical consequences of your work then you are an impostor.
The link to the topic at hand/reason I brought this up is that the 737 MAX issue (or the MCAS issue) isn't a technological problem so much as an ethical problem. Considering the technical faults in isolation ("putting the moralism and ethics in their own paragraph") is deliberately blinding one's self to the crux of the issue.
The aircraft doesn't do what it's specified to do. That's a technical problem. If the aircraft misbehaved but the people involved were really scrupulous about it, it would still be an engineering failure and their strong ethics would not mitigate that.
I absolutely concur with your viewpoint. Then again, I've always bought into the Iron Ring mentality anyway.
Right now I feel like there is a lot of hostility aimed at the "ethically active engineer". I've seen time and time again people pushed to back down because they're "rocking the boat."
On the other hand, I look at stuff going on in the Free Software movement where cancel culture seems to be being weaponized (by whom, and to whose ultimate benefit I can't really tell)as well.
There is a balance, but I really do agree that if you aren't actively engaged with the ethics of the process you're facilitating, you can't really call yourself an Engineer. I have lists of projects I won't do, and I have fewer qualms with letting an employer know they're crossing them as I get older.
Unfortunately for me the point is a little moot, as there is no PE for Software fellas anyway, and I'm a few years away from being able to work my way educationwise into a field that has a program for it.
Just wanted to let you know you aren't alone in your sentiment.
>Engineering is a social/ethical process, not a technical one
This is just bizarre.
>Yes, engineers tend to have technical skills
...tend to have???
>What separates engineers from "skilled people" is professional ethics
I'd argue that it is specialized education
> when you use those skills to design a bridge
>An engineer... who does not consider the ethics of their work cannot credibly claim to be an engineer at all.
A bridge is usually designed by a team of engineers, who will get a specification (usually from another team of engineers and other professionals).
One engineer may be a geotechnical expert, another might design piling, a third will specify the cement and aggregates in the concrete etc etc. Each contribution must meet the applicable technical standards and specifications. Apart from making sure your work is correct, how do you bring ethics into calculating the amount of rebar in your concrete slab??
I don't know about you, but there are lots of people I know who call themselves engineers but aren't actually very skilled at all.
>Apart from making sure your work is correct, how do you bring ethics into calculating the amount of rebar in your concrete slab??
I think it's pretty obvious that I was using "design a bridge" as a proxy for any engineering work. But to answer your question: by making sure you do your due diligence with your work, and push back against superiors who want you to cut corners in your analysis for money, of course.
The same way it works in any discipline of engineering. The engineers at Boeing appear to have been unsuccessful in changing the cost-cutting culture of their company, and the executives who ordered the cost cutting are ethically deficient. To put the ethics aside is to absolve the executives of responsibility. If you want a technical writeup of the MCAS debacle, the issue has been discussed ad nauseam in the crash reports. But those reports will lead to no material change if the CEO and other execs aren't willing to change their expectations.
Part of which in many programs includes familiarization with ethics coincidentally.
>A bridge is usually designed by a team of engineers... how do you bring ethics into calculating the amount of rebar in your concrete slab??
You are not a calculator. You are responsible for ensuring your specific part is correct, yes; but being conferred with the power to halt something that isn't up to snuff or to reject a plan for unsoundness also implies a responsibility to exercise that discretion. You (as the engineer) have those technical chops that others do not.
If you bow out and rubber stamp without a thought to the consequences of your actions, you aren't fulfilling your duty to the Public. With a bridge it's more straightforward, so it doesn't necessarily avail the civil engineer of the opportunity to exercise that discretion, but it is nevertheless there.
I know zero about engineering (or even ethics, heh) but this comment seems plausible and well-reasoned enough to not be anonymously greyed out, which seems a bit tattle-tale-y , to be honest.
Was it really necessary to add the second part to explain why the merger occured? 'industry is consolidating' seems reason enough. The mixing of explanation with moralism in every sentence is grating. Put the moralism and ethics in it's own paragraph so we can understand the explanation first. If it's all mixed up, then I have to evaluate every claim in the article as if it might be ethical statements by the author instead of focusing on understanding first, and then considering the ethical outcome after having attained the understanding.