Man this is a very informative, scary and infuriating write-up. Thank you for sharing.
I understand the need for corporations but I also get so fucking angry knowing that no-one ever gets criminally charged for negligence in cases like this.
Charging anyone with a ‘crime’ for something like this is really hard. You have to prove that a. someone in authority, b. knew that a deficiency existed, and c. explicitly directed the deficiency to exist or that it not be fixed, d. knowing that doing so was against regulations or policy or could cause a crash.
‘We did the best we could but it wasn’t good enough’ is a defense against criminal charges, especially when you can produce reams of paper showing how hard you tried.
There’s a saying- airplane safety is like swiss cheese. Every layer has holes, the more layers you stack on top of each other, the less likely there will be holes that line up from top to bottom. Doubtless even with Boeing crappy leadership there are still plenty of layers, there was just some change that was communicated but didn’t get routed to the right department or something.
It’s not illegal to drive your suppliers hard. It’s not illegal to push for higher production and lower costs.
So chances are this door plug thing will be a series of such mistakes, where everybody was ‘doing it right’ but not coordinated enough so the net result was it got done wrong.
The best solution would be to fire most/all of Boeing management, ideally without golden parachutes. That will only happen if their stock takes a BIG dive, AND if investors recognize that the current fuckup is only because of that management. I don’t know what their current investor makeup is. But I think THAT will only happen if a number of big customers start cancelling orders, or if there is major FAA enforcement action.
Cancelling an order is a major undertaking for an air carrier. Most aircraft aren’t directly owned by their carriers, there is a complicated financial structure where the aircraft itself and each of the engines are leased/financed and are technically the property of some finance group. These deals take months to set up and millions to unwind. Plus the air carrier will have further millions invested in other parts of the deal- their mechanics are trained on that manufacturer aircraft, they have parts supply deals, pilots are trained to fly that model aircraft, etc.
So for any airline to just ‘dump Boeing’ is a monumental and very expensive effort. That’s why all the carriers are taking measured ‘wait and see’ stances with statements like ‘we are working closely with FAA and Boeing to ensure the safe return of these aircraft to flight’ rather than ‘we’re unloading this junk and buying better airplanes’ or even ‘we’ve halted our purchase of further MAX airframes’.
There’s also the question of supply- even if a carrier WAS to dump Boeing, it’s unlikely that Airbus could increase production by any meaningful rate. And it’s not exactly like Airbus has a ‘stock’ of dozens of aircraft sitting around waiting for customers. The aircraft are built to order.
What may hopefully happen, is Boeing itself is found liable for some huge negligence, and given an astronomical fine as well as forcing Boeing to pay for major refits of all customer airplanes. That might be enough to get investors to act on removing Boeing’s leadership.
Man this is a very informative, scary and infuriating write-up. Thank you for sharing.
I understand the need for corporations but I also get so fucking angry knowing that no-one ever gets criminally charged for negligence in cases like this.
Charging anyone with a ‘crime’ for something like this is really hard. You have to prove that a. someone in authority, b. knew that a deficiency existed, and c. explicitly directed the deficiency to exist or that it not be fixed, d. knowing that doing so was against regulations or policy or could cause a crash.
‘We did the best we could but it wasn’t good enough’ is a defense against criminal charges, especially when you can produce reams of paper showing how hard you tried.
There’s a saying- airplane safety is like swiss cheese. Every layer has holes, the more layers you stack on top of each other, the less likely there will be holes that line up from top to bottom. Doubtless even with Boeing crappy leadership there are still plenty of layers, there was just some change that was communicated but didn’t get routed to the right department or something.
It’s not illegal to drive your suppliers hard. It’s not illegal to push for higher production and lower costs.
So chances are this door plug thing will be a series of such mistakes, where everybody was ‘doing it right’ but not coordinated enough so the net result was it got done wrong.
The best solution would be to fire most/all of Boeing management, ideally without golden parachutes. That will only happen if their stock takes a BIG dive, AND if investors recognize that the current fuckup is only because of that management. I don’t know what their current investor makeup is. But I think THAT will only happen if a number of big customers start cancelling orders, or if there is major FAA enforcement action.
Cancelling an order is a major undertaking for an air carrier. Most aircraft aren’t directly owned by their carriers, there is a complicated financial structure where the aircraft itself and each of the engines are leased/financed and are technically the property of some finance group. These deals take months to set up and millions to unwind. Plus the air carrier will have further millions invested in other parts of the deal- their mechanics are trained on that manufacturer aircraft, they have parts supply deals, pilots are trained to fly that model aircraft, etc.
So for any airline to just ‘dump Boeing’ is a monumental and very expensive effort. That’s why all the carriers are taking measured ‘wait and see’ stances with statements like ‘we are working closely with FAA and Boeing to ensure the safe return of these aircraft to flight’ rather than ‘we’re unloading this junk and buying better airplanes’ or even ‘we’ve halted our purchase of further MAX airframes’.
There’s also the question of supply- even if a carrier WAS to dump Boeing, it’s unlikely that Airbus could increase production by any meaningful rate. And it’s not exactly like Airbus has a ‘stock’ of dozens of aircraft sitting around waiting for customers. The aircraft are built to order.
What may hopefully happen, is Boeing itself is found liable for some huge negligence, and given an astronomical fine as well as forcing Boeing to pay for major refits of all customer airplanes. That might be enough to get investors to act on removing Boeing’s leadership.