[Brave-Steak]

I don't think it's a wrong characterization, imo. The problem with the MAX isn't necessarily the MCAS, but the culture and business/engineering processes that allowed MCAS to go all the way to production and allowed the company to convince their customers not to implement pilot training. There are multiple levels of failure beyond just MCAS being a thing, and the emails might suggest that (some of?) these systemic issues are also affecting the design of the 777x.

[yebyen]

Honestly, yes. I let my brain interpret the headline, "shares Max problem" and this is exactly what I thought it meant, before I clicked through.

As a non-aviation technologist, I initially thought it would be more surprising if the headline meant any of the specific technical failures that I've come to understand (like MCAS) which I've heard about through the ELI-5 and above coverage of the issues plaguing 737-MAX.

The root problem is the culture of disregard throughout many levels of decision making in an organization, such as Boeing has apparently demonstrated; the lack of regard for engineering quality and craftsmanship.

Edit: OK, here is another thread that has also made the HN front page with perhaps a more direct or less questionable title:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22090998

> Boeing's safety vs. cost-control culture may be what sent out fatal aircraft (cbc.ca)

[notatoad]

the problem with the max is that it has a tendency to crash. everything else is just a cause or symptom of that problem. If the 777X isn't going to crash, then it doesn't share the same problem.

when planes operate properly, nobody cares what business or engineering practices allowed that.

[ironmagma]

Why are the causes of that problem not really problems in themselves? Crashing could have multiple different causes; crashing is just a symptom.

[notatoad]

They are problems for the people working on solving the crashing. They aren't problems for anybody else.

for passengers, airlines, and anybody other than Boeing, the only problem is the crashing.

[ironmagma]

Isn’t that a bit like saying the problem in medicine is dying, and other things like heart disease, cancer, etc. aren’t really problems for the patients, as death is the only real problem?

[notatoad]

if you had cancer but experienced no symptoms, died in a car crash at age 95, and the cancer wasn't discovered until your autopsy, would you say it was a problem?

[ironmagma]

Of course it was a problem. If a person has diabetes but then they get shot to death, that doesn't make the diabetes irrelevant.

If 40% of people walking on the earth got cancer today, and it was asymptomatic, it would definitely be a problem, even if nobody saw it as their personal problem in this moment.