10 ms·

Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was off

91 points by magtux 7y ago

larrik 7y ago
Wow, I'd be surprised if some young congressperson doesn't make their career by publicly eviscerating Boeing soon.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  I hope you don't think it's going to be a US congresscritter. "Why do you hate American jobs!"
  - gorb314 7y ago
    Boeing as a whole might not be "evil", the same way VW as a whole is not "evil". So going after the whole of Boeing may not be the right thing. At the same time, some high-up people in VW are paying for the emissions-cheating scandal, which arguably could endanger human beings and the environment. When are people in Boeing going to pay for actually contributing to the deaths caused by this scandal?
  - dontbenebby 7y ago
    You can turn that logic around real quick since Boeing also makes planes and other equipment for the US military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu... You don't hate the troops after all, do you?
    - village-idiot 7y ago
      "Why does the honorable senator from wherever want our troops to fly in unsafe planes? Shouldn't the honorable senator, who claims to support the troops, want our troops to have the most reliable and effective planes available?"
    - JudgeWapner 7y ago
      yep, "think of the troops" is just as emotive (and patronizing) as "think of the children". Unbelievable that people repeatedly fall for it.
      - dontbenebby 7y ago
        I think it's valid to think about both. I just think sometimes people try to reduce risk to zero with no regard for the fact a zero risk society is one without civil liberties.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  I'm thinking of a particular congresswoman that almost certainly isn't going to do it because she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing. It's not an obvious political win. Edit: Ah, the good ol' "reality makes me unhappy so I'll shoot the messenger" down-votes. I don't know why I even comment in any of the Boeing threads anymore.
  - BonesJustice 7y ago
    If it were me, I'd rail against the Boeing _leadership_. Frame it as management's greed putting blue collar jobs at risk (by putting sales and corporate reputation at risk).
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      You can "frame" it either way. If your goal is to get elected it doesn't seem prudent to wade into this kind of issue unless you can be sure that you can successfully frame it the way you want. There's lower hanging political fruit out there.
  - everdev 7y ago
    So let's not make a fuss about safety, because of jobs?
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Where did I say that? All I said is that it wasn't a clear political win because it could easily be framed as a jobs issue.
      - everdev 7y ago
        > she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers. That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.
- _eht 7y ago
  I feel like you are fantastically undervaluing the power of the Boeing lobby groups...
karlkatzke 7y ago
"If it's boeing I ain't going"
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  I wonder how many serious problems Airbus have that we simply don't know about because they haven't been caught.
  - simion314 7y ago
    How is this helping, even if Airbus are as bad that does not help the people that were killed, at least after the first crash Boeing should have ground the planes until the problem was completely understood and fixed (in software or other way). I will wait for the emails and other documents to surface and see how they took the decisions after the first crash, if the engineers reported the issues but nobody listen etc. Hopefully some lessons will be learned from thins and engineers from other companies like Airbus would speak if shortcuts that are not safe are pushed.
  - village-idiot 7y ago
    Well, they designed their airframe to handle the larger engines properly, rather than patching it with software. So I'm going to wager that the answer is "a lot less".
    - xvf22 7y ago
      Boeing shot themselves in the foot after the awful outsourced supply chain [0] and battery problems on the 787 which meant that they had less financial resources available to go clean sheet and instead they adapted an old design. [0] https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-for-boeing-787-dreamliner-problems https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-f...
      - village-idiot 7y ago
        I call these strategies "bonuses today, bankruptcy tomorrow".
magtux 7y ago
I always had great respect for aerospace and thought they'd put safety above all else but seeing all this, Boeing seems like a fucking travesty.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Boeing opened its South Carolina plant to avoid a unionized workforce, and that plant has been responsible for producing these horrific excuses they call airplanes. They had the benefit of a doubt before, but now it's clear that Boeing's leadership, like that of other public companies, values cheap labor over safety.
  - ogn3rd 7y ago
    Gosh, it's almost like corporate greed is ruining our country.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    This is not a manufacturing issue. It is all on poor engineering and poor management making poor decisions.
  - tomatotomato37 7y ago
    I'm not sure how unions have any relations to this. They exist as a mediator between management and workers for pay and rights; customer satisfaction or safety is completely outside their domain
    - ilikehurdles 7y ago
      Unions give employees the knowledge and leverage to push back against unrealistic demands, deadlines, and cost-cutting measures without retaliation. These kinds of rushed solutions causing more problems down the line are caused by a culture that rewards employees who put up with managers breathing down their neck.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
simion314 7y ago
As I commented in previous articles here on HN, the chance that there are other subsystems that were rushed and self-approved by Boeing is not zero, people thinking that fixing the MCAS is enough are forgetting to consider that other components had to be updated for the new design.
gdubs 7y ago
If I recall from earlier reporting, this is the safety light that Southwest paid extra to have installed, right?
mhandley 7y ago
And it's recently emerged that the AoA sensor misread itself may have been Boeing's fault, and due to foreign object damage to wiring: https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-report-more-737-max-8-problems-to-faa https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-rep... Boeing also has foreign object damage problems on the 787 and on the KC46 tankers. Looks like this story still has a long way to run. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-air-force-again-halts-delivery-of-boeings-tanker-over-debris/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-a...
- RankingMember 7y ago
  Wow, I'm surprised that's not more well-known (that the USAF halted all deliveries of the KC-46 after finding loose material and debris in delivered planes). Amazingly bad. I wonder what the odds are that the Dreamliner gets grounded (again) soon to have them all gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
gthtjtkt 7y ago
This is pretty disturbing and makes me far more confident in my decision to never set foot on a Boeing airplane again. I thought the American airlines had all opted for the AoA disagree light, but now it sounds like Southwest didn't have it because Boeing lied to them and said it was standard.
porpoisemonkey 7y ago
I've recently contacted all of the major airlines that fly the 737 Max as well as my congressional representatives and the FAA to let them know I have serious reservations about a software fix to the aircraft. If this issue is concerning to you I'd recommend you do the same. To make it easier, I've put the links to all the contact sites below. United Airlines https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare Southwest Airlines https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html American Airlines https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/ https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/ Find your Congressional representatives https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati... FAA https://hotline.faa.gov/ https://hotline.faa.gov/
RankingMember 7y ago
For anyone interested in an insider's perspective on recent quality issues at Boeing, check out this short New York Times podcast wherein they interview whistleblowers. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-dreamliner-charleston.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing... The excerpt that stands out to me the most related the story of one of the whistleblowers finding pieces of debris within a 787 aircraft (between the passenger compartment and the skin), telling his supervisor, and then being told not to worry about it. In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.
- itsaidpens 7y ago
  These stories are from an acquired factory - it seems like they acquired a lot of problems when they bought Embraer.
  - cryptonector 7y ago
    Who knows. Maybe the problems where imposed on those factories.
jbarberu 7y ago
I don't fly very often, but being in the midst of booking flights I'm very thankful for websites having filters by airplane type. I'll be paying the additional 10-20% to not set foot on a Boeing this time.
agumonkey 7y ago
very timely, AvE just made a teardown of an AOAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZ0D-JRtz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZ0D-JRtz0

91 points by magtux 7y ago

larrik 7y ago

Wow, I'd be surprised if some young congressperson doesn't make their career by publicly eviscerating Boeing soon.

mieseratte 7y ago
I hope you don't think it's going to be a US congresscritter. "Why do you hate American jobs!"
- gorb314 7y ago
  Boeing as a whole might not be "evil", the same way VW as a whole is not "evil". So going after the whole of Boeing may not be the right thing. At the same time, some high-up people in VW are paying for the emissions-cheating scandal, which arguably could endanger human beings and the environment. When are people in Boeing going to pay for actually contributing to the deaths caused by this scandal?
- dontbenebby 7y ago
  You can turn that logic around real quick since Boeing also makes planes and other equipment for the US military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu... You don't hate the troops after all, do you?
  - village-idiot 7y ago
    "Why does the honorable senator from wherever want our troops to fly in unsafe planes? Shouldn't the honorable senator, who claims to support the troops, want our troops to have the most reliable and effective planes available?"
  - JudgeWapner 7y ago
    yep, "think of the troops" is just as emotive (and patronizing) as "think of the children". Unbelievable that people repeatedly fall for it.
    - dontbenebby 7y ago
      I think it's valid to think about both. I just think sometimes people try to reduce risk to zero with no regard for the fact a zero risk society is one without civil liberties.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I'm thinking of a particular congresswoman that almost certainly isn't going to do it because she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing. It's not an obvious political win. Edit: Ah, the good ol' "reality makes me unhappy so I'll shoot the messenger" down-votes. I don't know why I even comment in any of the Boeing threads anymore.
- BonesJustice 7y ago
  If it were me, I'd rail against the Boeing _leadership_. Frame it as management's greed putting blue collar jobs at risk (by putting sales and corporate reputation at risk).
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    You can "frame" it either way. If your goal is to get elected it doesn't seem prudent to wade into this kind of issue unless you can be sure that you can successfully frame it the way you want. There's lower hanging political fruit out there.
- everdev 7y ago
  So let's not make a fuss about safety, because of jobs?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Where did I say that? All I said is that it wasn't a clear political win because it could easily be framed as a jobs issue.
    - everdev 7y ago
      > she'd lose the vote of pretty much every blue collar worker that aspires to have a stable job somewhere like Boeing It sounds like you're suggesting that we shouldn't hold Boeing too accountable because they wouldn't be able to retain or hire as many blue collar workers. That definitely could be a side effect but I'd be more concerned about creating safe airplanes than safe jobs.
_eht 7y ago
I feel like you are fantastically undervaluing the power of the Boeing lobby groups...

karlkatzke 7y ago

"If it's boeing I ain't going"

LeoPanthera 7y ago
I wonder how many serious problems Airbus have that we simply don't know about because they haven't been caught.
- simion314 7y ago
  How is this helping, even if Airbus are as bad that does not help the people that were killed, at least after the first crash Boeing should have ground the planes until the problem was completely understood and fixed (in software or other way). I will wait for the emails and other documents to surface and see how they took the decisions after the first crash, if the engineers reported the issues but nobody listen etc. Hopefully some lessons will be learned from thins and engineers from other companies like Airbus would speak if shortcuts that are not safe are pushed.
- village-idiot 7y ago
  Well, they designed their airframe to handle the larger engines properly, rather than patching it with software. So I'm going to wager that the answer is "a lot less".
  - xvf22 7y ago
    Boeing shot themselves in the foot after the awful outsourced supply chain [0] and battery problems on the 787 which meant that they had less financial resources available to go clean sheet and instead they adapted an old design. [0] https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-for-boeing-787-dreamliner-problems https://www.consultancy.uk/news/297/outsourcing-main-cause-f...
    - village-idiot 7y ago
      I call these strategies "bonuses today, bankruptcy tomorrow".

magtux 7y ago

I always had great respect for aerospace and thought they'd put safety above all else but seeing all this, Boeing seems like a fucking travesty.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Boeing opened its South Carolina plant to avoid a unionized workforce, and that plant has been responsible for producing these horrific excuses they call airplanes. They had the benefit of a doubt before, but now it's clear that Boeing's leadership, like that of other public companies, values cheap labor over safety.
- ogn3rd 7y ago
  Gosh, it's almost like corporate greed is ruining our country.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  This is not a manufacturing issue. It is all on poor engineering and poor management making poor decisions.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  I'm not sure how unions have any relations to this. They exist as a mediator between management and workers for pay and rights; customer satisfaction or safety is completely outside their domain
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    Unions give employees the knowledge and leverage to push back against unrealistic demands, deadlines, and cost-cutting measures without retaliation. These kinds of rushed solutions causing more problems down the line are caused by a culture that rewards employees who put up with managers breathing down their neck.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago

simion314 7y ago

As I commented in previous articles here on HN, the chance that there are other subsystems that were rushed and self-approved by Boeing is not zero, people thinking that fixing the MCAS is enough are forgetting to consider that other components had to be updated for the new design.

gdubs 7y ago

If I recall from earlier reporting, this is the safety light that Southwest paid extra to have installed, right?

mhandley 7y ago

And it's recently emerged that the AoA sensor misread itself may have been Boeing's fault, and due to foreign object damage to wiring: https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-report-more-737-max-8-problems-to-faa https://interestingengineering.com/boeing-whistleblowers-rep... Boeing also has foreign object damage problems on the 787 and on the KC46 tankers. Looks like this story still has a long way to run. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-air-force-again-halts-delivery-of-boeings-tanker-over-debris/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-a...

RankingMember 7y ago
Wow, I'm surprised that's not more well-known (that the USAF halted all deliveries of the KC-46 after finding loose material and debris in delivered planes). Amazingly bad. I wonder what the odds are that the Dreamliner gets grounded (again) soon to have them all gone over with a fine-tooth comb.

gthtjtkt 7y ago

This is pretty disturbing and makes me far more confident in my decision to never set foot on a Boeing airplane again. I thought the American airlines had all opted for the AoA disagree light, but now it sounds like Southwest didn't have it because Boeing lied to them and said it was standard.

porpoisemonkey 7y ago

I've recently contacted all of the major airlines that fly the 737 Max as well as my congressional representatives and the FAA to let them know I have serious reservations about a software fix to the aircraft. If this issue is concerning to you I'd recommend you do the same. To make it easier, I've put the links to all the contact sites below. United Airlines https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/customer/customercare Southwest Airlines https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html American Airlines https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/ https://www.aa.com/contact/forms?topic=CR#/ Find your Congressional representatives https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati... FAA https://hotline.faa.gov/ https://hotline.faa.gov/

RankingMember 7y ago

For anyone interested in an insider's perspective on recent quality issues at Boeing, check out this short New York Times podcast wherein they interview whistleblowers. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-dreamliner-charleston.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing... The excerpt that stands out to me the most related the story of one of the whistleblowers finding pieces of debris within a 787 aircraft (between the passenger compartment and the skin), telling his supervisor, and then being told not to worry about it. In another case, a whistleblower in charge of defective inventory found that some of the items marked defective were going missing and ending up installed on aircraft to meet production goals rather than wait for a proper replacement, the red paint marking them defective having been clumsily rubbed off.

itsaidpens 7y ago
These stories are from an acquired factory - it seems like they acquired a lot of problems when they bought Embraer.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  Who knows. Maybe the problems where imposed on those factories.

jbarberu 7y ago

I don't fly very often, but being in the midst of booking flights I'm very thankful for websites having filters by airplane type. I'll be paying the additional 10-20% to not set foot on a Boeing this time.

agumonkey 7y ago

very timely, AvE just made a teardown of an AOAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZ0D-JRtz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhZ0D-JRtz0