[olig15]

Ah you’re right. They’re not design flaws, just manufacturing issues, so sign me up for the first flight when the max flies again…

People falling out the sky because the wing falls off because someone forgot to bolt it on aren’t going to care if it’s a design issue or a manufacturing issue. Boeing is doing both, so the blame lies with them either way.

[samtho]

The statement pointing out that it’s a manufacturing error (I’m guessing) was not intended to be solution to the problem. It pointed out that those problems have less to do the certification of the design and more to do with a manufacturing defect. If the manufacturer created parts that were up to specifications, these things would have not been a problem. This is a very important distinction because a design flaw is a much bigger deal for this aircraft type than that poorly manufactured components.

Boing is still at fault, yes, but we should exercise restraint in becoming too reductionistic on complicated engineering problems.

[cco]

> It pointed out that those problems have less to do the certification of the design and more to do with a manufacturing defect.

You might really enjoy a book called the The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. He covers your comment here in detail.

One of his key insights is that "human error" are far too often weasel words that prematurely end a conversation (or investigation) into root cause. He goes on to detail a whole tree of "human error" so we can speak about mistakes, lapses, and errors that humans make.

The meat of his point is that some types of human error are very hard to design out of your system, but _many_ types of human error can and should be expected by the designer (or engineer), and appropriately handled.

In this instance, if a human (or perhaps a few) can make a single error when affixing the door plug to the aircraft, like improperly torquing a bolt. And that simple error risks a catastrophic loss of the airframe, then you probably have a _design_ issue and not a "manufacturing issue caused by human error".

[23B1]

Why exactly should we "exercise restraint in becoming too reductionistic on complicated engineering problems"?

[samtho]

When we reduce complicated problems down to inaccurate trivial ones by stripping out important details and nuance, we end up with a caricature of the original - one that easily devolves into a to strawman argument to serve someone’s point. This new representation masquerading as the original can carry the same weight as the one it was based off of.

[23B1]

This is spreadsheet brain thinking – likely the same MDD dorks used to justify cutting corners.

There's no nuance when people are dying. None whatsoever.

If someone can't agree to that sort of black-and-white thinking, probably they should be working in an industry where innocent lives aren't dependent upon sound decision-making.

[Miraste]

I absolutely agree. I meant it as a comparison to issues like the infamous MCAS, which was wrong on purpose on all 737 Max 8s everywhere.

There isn't a change in outcome between the flaws, but I think the difference between a mistake and a known issue that was left in while the company tried to change regulations to allow it, all for a tiny cut to the BOM, is worth noting.

[eqvinox]

Question is, why were these things manufactured wrong. It's well possible that Boeing's engineering documents are poor or misleading, triggering human error during manufacturing.

This is of course pure speculation and it might equally well be some single manufacturer pressuring ("optimizing") their employees (or even machines) past the point of reliability.

Either way I'm not gonna fault anyone for refusing to fly on a 737 MAX. At some point you gotta make a call and shift your assumption from "isolated engineering/manufacturing mishap" to "corporate screwed the entire product top to bottom".

[upon_drumhead]

> Spirit [AeroSystems] is responsible for the entire fuselage, including the cockpit, in all Boeing jets, and the entire fuselage for the 737 MAX models, according to the Seattle Times.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/boeing-737-max-loses-e...

So Boeing didn’t actually manufacture the plane. But they are still responsible for ensuring its manufactured correctly.