[CaptainZapp]

Let's just say that Boeing pushed a 50 year old design to places to which it never was supposed to pushed to.

Full blown panic about Airbus' offerings had a lot to do with this faithful decision.

The first crash was a combination of greed, bad design decisions, rush to market and all that in combination with an FAA that was in Boeing's pocket.

The fact that they didn't immediately pulled the plane after the Lion Air crash and the second crash was nothing less than corporate mass murder for profit.

[AlphaSite]

I was under the impression the Max vs a clean room design was actually pushed by airlines, rather than by Boeing it’s self. They wanted a new form scratch design, much like the 787.

Now not to remove responsibility from them, ultimately they buckled under pressure and did the deed.

[kayfox]

That's exactly what happened, Boeing wanted to re-design the 737 with a new type certificate and all that, but the airlines pushed for a re-engined 737.

In the end the 737 MAX is largely a good design, just with one big fuckup.

There's also a certain irony that Boeing would have been able to push out a software update before the Ethiopian crash if the government was not shut down for a month over Dec 2018-Jan 2019.

[kayfox]

They had a software update to correct a bunch of issues with MCAS in the pipe, but it was delayed by the government shutdown.

If there had been no government shutdown, the Ethiopian Airlines crash might not have happened.

[ddalex]

You keep pushing the blame on the government shutdown.

Boeing could itself grounded the airplanes without government intervention but corporate greed won.

Other governments are to blame ibdeed for relying on FAA certification instead of doing their own. I guess that won't happen again.

[kayfox]

> You keep pushing the blame on the government shutdown.

I've actually only mentioned it in two or maybe three comments over the last year.

Your operating from the benefit of hindsight. All the information about the Lion Air crash is out now, you can look at it and decide it should have been grounded. At the time it was not very clear what had happened and why and if it was issues with the pilots or the aircraft or both. Boeing had more information than the public, but not as much as came to light after the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

Also, Boeing does not actually have the authority to ground aircraft they make, they have to push the FAA to do it. The FAA will want to have a good reason, because if the FAA does something that needlessly costs the airline industry lots of money, people at the FAA loose their jobs.

So, its pretty much fuckups all around.

[ddalex]

> decide it should have been grounded

It should haven't been flown in the first place, as it breaks the rule of having a full-authority control system dependent on a single non-redundant sensor.

Boeing got approval for a limited-authority control system, and then modified it to be full-authority without redoing the paperwork. They KNOWINGLY LIED on the type certification documentation. If they wouldn't have lied the aircraft wouldn't have gotten of the ground in the first place.

> Boeing does not actually have the authority to ground aircraft

They do, it's called an Airworthiness Directive and a manufacturer can ask for it and FAA will comply. Even if the FAA is un-operative due to a US government shutdown, they could've notified EASA, CAA, etc. to prevent a knowingly-faulty plane from flying. They CHOSE to cover it.

> the FAA does something that needlessly costs the airline industry lots of money

Try to balance corporate greed vs safety, and it won't end well because lives of people some place far away don't have monetary value to FAA. Safety MUST be paramount in all aspects, trumping profit, because otherwise people will die.