[shiven]

From my point-of-view, two opinion points:

1. I am glad that 737 MAX has been grounded. May it stay that way, globally, until this issue is provably resolved.

2. The entire Boeing chain of management that resulted in these crashes should be publicly flogged, their remuneration & benefits clawed back & subject to a mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Who the hell am I kidding! Neither is very likely to happen in the present day US. Carry on then, I guess. Just make sure to sign your Last Will & Testament before taking that next flight.

[rvolkan]

What happens if your #2 is applied to doctors, car/ship manufacturers, food producers, grocery stores, house builders, taxis, restaurants, software engineers, medical device producers and so on? Every profession caused accidental deaths.

"Legal action" against bad decisions is a must. However, mandatory prison sentence for accidents is a terrible idea.

[kunkurus]

If Boeing knowingly exposed the passengers to the risk of injury it's criminal negligence and usually the punishment is imprisonment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_negligence

[rvolkan]

Exactly my point. Imprisonment should come into play when the accidents are proven to be caused by Boeing's negligence.

[ibejoeb]

Is it negligence or just a bad design? Who decides? The thing is starting to look like Boeing thought that MCAS failure was similar to and corrected by the same procedure as runaway trim. Time will tell if that is the case, but if it does, should the pilots be posthumously tried for negligence?

[Wowfunhappy]

Especially in light of the current size of the US's prison population. We should be very careful in general about advocating for more prison sentences. It's an easy thing to do, but the societal outcome is a lot more complicated.

[magduf]

Oh please. If there's one demographic we don't have much of in our prison system, it's upper-class corporate executives. We could stand to let some non-violent drug offenders out early to make room for them.

[veryworried]

One thing that bothers me about this generation is this thirst for infinite punishment.

People hunger for someone to blame, rattling off a long list of maladies that should befall that person, until they have been thoroughly satisfied, but they are never satisfied. They always feel there should be someone else, something more, something deserved.

The truth is, there is no point to such a punishment here. It is unlikely that any individual plotted to kill people by pushing some faulty code out of malice. These were people simply doing their best and they failed.

[nine_k]

While I agree that thirst for punishment is counter-productive, I'm not sure that people did their best, or rather that the criteria of the "best" were right.

I remember that the aircraft in question was tweaked beyond stability in order to reuse the existing type certificate. This procedure need scrutiny, likely both on Boeing's and FAA sides.

[jyounker]

The news that I'm hearing now is that Boeing has been working on a software fix for this problem since at least January.

Where were the glaring safety warnings to the airlines, their customers?

[veryworried]

The thing about a software fix is that you never know when the solution is near. It could be fixed next week, or it may require an entire rewrite of critical systems. You just don't know until it's fully diagnosed. So why sound the alarm when plenty of flights have gone without problems and a software fix might be around the corner, especially if you have all your best men working on the problem?

[JMTQp8lwXL]

Even if the US doesn't choose to do much (though I find it embarrassing the FAA was one of the last regulatory bodies to respond), Boeing will face a reckoning globally from other regulatory agencies.

Stock is down 15% since March 1. Hard to know what an executives there are thinking, but I hope some folks in the organization genuinely feels some sort of empathy for the families of the deceased on these flights.

[markdown]

> though I find it embarrassing the FAA was one of the last regulatory bodies to respond

The top 3 officials at FAA are unfilled, with seat-warmers there in an "acting" capacity. I wonder if that's related. https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/

[jki275]

Honestly, those top positions in almost any organization are often political appointments that have little to do with day to day operations. The current "actings" are generally the ones who "advise" the political appointees on how to handle things. Obviously there are some exceptions, but most bureaucracies tend to run that way.

Not to comment specifically on this as FAA isn't my area, but if the secdef doesn't come to work tomorrow the undersecretary is going to take the same actions he would have. I'd imagine most of those orgs trend that way.

[matthewdgreen]

The value of having confirmed appointees in those positions is not necessarily their native technical expertise. As you’ve noted, that expertise can be provided by career employees. The value of political appointees is the political clout they carry. Given that they’ve been appointed directly by the President and confirmed by the Senate, it is much harder (or politically fraught) to simply threaten or replace them when they take an unpopular stand like “let’s ground an airplane.”

The US government is a complex system, and like most complex systems it works best when you, a non-expert, don’t randomly yank out pieces and declare them unnecessary.

[jki275]

Well, that's not what I said. I've not claimed they're unnecessary, just that they have a slightly different and perhaps less important role than the post I replied to was giving them. The undersecretaries can make the same decisions, and in fact the career personnel in the organization have far more ability to take action without fear of replacement by anyone as they have more protection than a secretary who serves at the pleasure of the appointing authority.

That said, generally the undersecretaries are appointed and confirmed as well, as their role is to step in and backfill if the primary is not available, so that answers that issue.

[matthewdgreen]

I can’t find any evidence that the current acting FAA administrator was Senate confirmed. Is the Internet just being unreliable here?

I think your notion that career personnel have as much DC political clout as unconfirmed career officials is one of those things that sounds good if one is trying to win a debate, but is unlikely to represent the actual facts on the ground.

[mikeash]

Amusing example, considering the Secretary of Defense has been vacant since January.

[jki275]

Well, Shanahan is acting and will be confirmed when the senate gets around to it... that's kind of the point though. DOD is still running and will continue to run, exactly as it has, with only minor political differences from the top. They have a lot of theoretical power, but little ability to actually change day to day operations of anything.

[matthewdgreen]

The purpose of confirmed political appointees is to create a layer of empowered leaders who can do more than simply steer the ship in a straight line, or react slavishly to orders from above. The confirmation process serves two purposes: (1) it ensures that relatively independent thinkers with high political capital are in those spots, and they see their allegiance to the entire system and not just one man, (2) it provides a safety valve (via resignation) when the confirmed appointee does not agree with orders from above. The danger of the DoD is that it’s an agency that can give the appearance of running itself when there’s no crisis, but may need expert leadership when there is one. Since the entire purpose of the DoD is to manage crises, lack of high-level leadership is a serious concern. Ditto the FAA.

[mikeash]

Oh, sure. I just enjoyed the combination of the example being a bit off, because it sounded like a hypothetical, but also a perfect real-world demonstration of the idea.

[WalterBright]

I'd fly on a 737 MAX tomorrow. But I might ask the crew during boarding if they're familiar with the stab trim cutoff switches.

[jquery]

I've flown on a 737 MAX a couple times this year. Smooth, comfortable, quiet flight. Although the failure of the MCAS system has been catastrophic, fortunately for Boeing the fix doesn't seem difficult... make an extra AoA vane or two mandatory and add a warning if they disagree, and require MAX pilots to sim train an MCAS failure.

The planes seem eminently airworthy, so far it appears they weren't brought down by anything that's terribly difficult to engineer out of. Unfortunately for Boeing and the FAA, nothing is more costly than an accident, it will take years to earn back the public's trust. Even if it's found the pilots were downright negligent in their handling of the MCAS failure, that won't make the general flying public feel any better about it, and it won't bring back the dead, may they rest in peace.

[cjbprime]

There's already two AoA vanes mandatory on every plane (even non-MAX planes). There is a warning if they disagree in the optional package that the North American airlines bought, but not any other airlines. The warning is not much of a warning, just a disagree light. It would have been impossible for the Lion Air pilots to benefit from this disagree light, because they didn't know that it was hooked up to a control surface and neither did any other pilots, it seems.

> The planes seem eminently airworthy

An uncontrolled nosedive caused by a single sensor failure is not in anyone's definition of airworthy. It must be fixed. This lack of airworthiness was not the pilots' fault.

[dingaling]

> There's already two AoA vanes mandatory on every plane

And all Airbus types have three or four. Boeings only have two, even on the 787 ( on which one is vulnerable to damage from jetbridges ).

It is disappointing that a manufacturer would cut corners on sensors for a $100 million aircraft.

[WalterBright]

Airbus needs more because there's no mechanical backup to the flight control computers.

[virusduck]

I'd bet more than a few of them are pretty familiar now

[magduf]

>1. I am glad that 737 MAX has been grounded. May it stay that way, globally, until this issue is provably resolved.

No, it should stay grounded permanently. Who wants to risk their lives in one of these things now, with the reputation that Boeing has now earned? The airlines should be able to return these things to Boeing and get their money back. If that means Boeing goes under, then so be it.

[yeukhon]

IMO, I don't want MAX to be resurrected. If the design is flawed, let it be and shut it down. But this ain't gonna happen because how expensive aircrafts are.

Oh well.