There is a nuance to his/her comments that may be being lost.
When an airliner goes down, the airline, the pilots union and the airline manufacturer all point fingers.
That is what happens. When Boeing says we should use "average pilots" there is subtly in the statement that assigns blame.
Boeing should have said, "we should use pilots who are trained through normal training procedures, rather than over trained test pilots."
That statement would not have assigned blame and OP is probably correct that the statement choice was intentionally designed to shift blame back to the pilots.
Not playing the blame game is what you do when you have a development team figuring out what went wrong when something went down for a couple hours.
This is a corporation putting a product on the market with a critical safety system that lacked redundancy and poor training given to pilots. Yes, there is blame to be placed here. Individuals who worked on the system aren’t the issue here, a greedy corporation is and I feel no sympathy for the company itself.
I have downvoted your comment, because I believe it does more to obscure understanding than to enlighten.
> when 400 people die for a company to save money
Let me take a step back and ask: Why?
Is it because we're vindictive, and demand blood? Or is it because this actually does something to help keep people from dying in the future?
If the latter is more important than the former -- which I hope is the case -- how can we trust that we're pursuing a course that improves the future of society while also using rhetoric to the effect of "when 400 people die for a company to save money"?
Consider, for instance: Part of reason for the company "saving money" is that it results in lower costs for planes, and ultimately lower airfare for customers who pay airlines' capital expenses, potentially resulting in fewer miles driven and fewer accident. Is reducing this statistical danger more or less than the danger of the planes? Quite possibly, it's not -- but using this rhetoric certainly won't help us find out.
More broadly the "omg greed" narrative, which -- to me, at least -- just doesn't make too much sense. If the corner-cutting that led to 737 Max problems is to be understood as a "greed" move, it's a pretty incompetent one, because Boeing is almost certainly out billions over the mess. People who seek to maximize profits for their own self-interest also seek to mitigate risk, for the same reason. I would suggest that a "hubris" narrative, or something similar, is probably more appropriate here.
If this is so, the remedies are entirely different, and the assertion that we MUST jail people, because it fits our "greed" narrative and whatever cognitive bias we drag into the picture, ensures that we will not remedy the problem effectively. This means people may die.
> the assertion that we MUST jail people, because it fits our "greed" narrative and whatever cognitive bias we drag into the picture, ensures that we will not remedy the problem effectively. This means people may die.
You don't send people to jail because of "greed", broadly speaking you might divide it into two categories: A) this specific person is a threat to society; B) this person did something morally unconscionable, irresponsible, negligent etc. The reasoning for following through with B is not merely vindictive, it's societal value is in sending a message that this behaviour is not OK! that is a preventative measure - "you must be morally responsible".
This is entirely applicable to this scenario: greed is NOT the problem, trying to make cheaper planes is NOT the problem, trying to beat the competition is NOT the problem - The problem is attaining those goals by gambling with peoples lives by cutting corners that significantly compromise safety, that is gross negligence.
... So yes! send the people responsible to jail, please show the next in line that this behaviour is not tolerated.
> If the corner-cutting that led to 737 Max problems is to be understood as a "greed" move, it's a pretty incompetent one, because Boeing is almost certainly out billions over the mess.
Incompetence and greed aren’t mutually exclusive.
If you take the word of all of the good engineers who were pushed out or quit in frustration over the financialization of the company after the McDonnall Douglas merger, then “omg greed” really does explain everything.
Note that this could have been (and was) predicted by anyone with half a brain:
“On some level, though, he saw it all coming; he even demonstrated how the costs of a grounded plane would dwarf the short-term savings achieved from the latest outsourcing binge in one of his reports that no one read back in 2002.*“
Just because it us an incompetent greed move, dors not mean it wasn't a greed move.
They lost big thus time, but they were winning big, with more orders than they could make.
When Boeing mgt declared that they 'no longer needed [to spend money on] senior engineers because these are mature products', and successfully pushed for the same type rating for a plane with deadly different handling characteristics (to save money on pilot training), both were explicit greed moves.
And yes, irresponsible managers who ignored the reality of physics and put their profits over the safety of passengers should go to jail for their criminally bad decisions.
The essence of successful post mortems is getting the fact collection right, before discussing how to prevent the issue.
The grandparent's summary omitted essential facts.
When an airliner goes down, the airline, the pilots union and the airline manufacturer all point fingers.
That is what happens. When Boeing says we should use "average pilots" there is subtly in the statement that assigns blame.
Boeing should have said, "we should use pilots who are trained through normal training procedures, rather than over trained test pilots."
That statement would not have assigned blame and OP is probably correct that the statement choice was intentionally designed to shift blame back to the pilots.