| > How fast do you think this stuff can happen? Above I posted a seven year old documentary about the 787 Dreamliner, and there were the same problems of Boeing doing the FAA's work. So to answer your question: I don't really know, but it seems to be decades at least before anything changes, if at all. And that's really appalling. >I'm going to assume you're no engineer. I am, actually. As an engineer you can calculate a risk like: this part under this type of load will fail at x, and then design so that x is never reached (or in a million years or so) to make a design safe. A manager can calculate risk like: if we sell 5k planes, and we can make them $1000 cheaper by using a part that will increase the likelihood of a crash by only 2%, since the chance of a crash is already very very low, we might as well use the inferior part and make $5m extra. That way I can buy that third mansion I want. Both are calculating risk. The engineer calculates for safety, the manager for his stock options. Which do you think is better? My point is, the goal should always be complete safety. Even though engineers know that that is impossible, and even though lots of managers don't care at all about safety. We should still strive for it. Total flight safety should be the goal, not a byproduct of good engineering. That's why we have the FAA in the first place, because we don't trust those managers at Boeing to make the right decisions, because experience learned us we shouldn't. We trusted on the FAA and Boeing to hold that goal of passenger safety to the highest standards, but they betrayed that trust completely by letting Boeing do the FAA's work! Isn't that completely bonkers? Perhaps we just should scrap the FAA as well and let the Europeans certify all planes. I don't know. But right now there's nothing but ass-saving going on, and that doesn't restore trust in either of those organizations. Lot's of people should be going to jail for this, but they wont, because they're rich and can buy their way out. Everybody knows this. That's the way the United States works. Justice is only for the rich and powerful. That's how Boeing can kill 300+ people and get away with it. As an engineer, this worries me greatly. |