Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and 'Clowns' Who Designed 737 Max

[dalton99a]

Last edited Fri Jan 10, 2020, 01:08 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/business/boeing-737-messages.html

Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max
The company expressed regret at the embarrassing communications it sent to investigators on Thursday, which included a comment that “this airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys.”
By Natalie Kitroeff
Jan. 9, 2020

Boeing employees mocked federal rules, talked about deceiving regulators and joked about potential flaws in the 737 Max as it was being developed, according to over a hundred pages of internal messages delivered Thursday to congressional investigators.

“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in messages from 2018, apparently in reference to interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The most damaging messages included conversations among Boeing pilots and other employees about software issues and other problems with flight simulators for the Max, a plane later involved in two accidents, in late 2018 and early 2019, that killed 346 people and threw the company into chaos.

The employees appear to discuss instances in which the company concealed such problems from the F.A.A. during the regulator’s certification of the simulators, which were used in the development of the Max, as well as in training for pilots who had not previously flown a 737.

“Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” one employee said to a colleague in another exchange from 2018, before the first crash. “No,” the colleague responded.

In another set of messages, employees questioned the design of the Max and even denigrated their own colleagues. “This airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys,” an employee wrote in an exchange from 2017.

The release of the communications — both emails and instant messages — is the latest embarrassing episode for Boeing in a crisis that has cost the company billions of dollars and wreaked havoc on the aviation industry across the globe. The Max has been grounded for nearly 10 months, after the two deadly crashes. A software system developed for the plane was found to have played a role in both accidents, and since then the company has been working to update the system.

[dem4decades]

1. Simulator? How about putting the family on a Max ?

WTF is wrong with these people?

[blugbox]

5. They are saying they wouldn't put their family on a 737-max with a pilot or

Perhaps autopilot trained by those simulators. Must mean there were some glitches or shortcomings with the software

[Scotch-Irish]

2. This is the problem with capitalism...anything for profit, no matter who is killed or

hurt. Other economic systems have their own problems. This is one (of many) of capitalism's problems.

[Timewas]

8. One word

Applies to al of them pols and business leaders alike

GREED

[Scotch-Irish]

9. Bingo.

That's the group it appeals to most...the greedy and the gullible.

[LisaM]

3. Holy crap.

This is really why we need whistleblower laws, and why no one stepped forward at the company is mind-boggling.

People I know who worked there a long time all say that the culture changed with the McDonnell Douglas merger, If so, that's very unfortunate, and perhaps should end up as a Harvard Business School case study.

[rickford66]

4. Unless it's a Boeing Sim, the manufacturer is at Boeing's mercy

Boeing supplies a data package and each manufacturer has to meet it. I've worked on a Boeing sim in parallel with sims for two commercial airlines. Some of the data I needed was very hard to get from Boeing even though it was paid for. Back then much of the data, huge stacks of paper and manuals, was ZEROX copies, costing $1.00 a piece. As you can imagine there were plenty of blank sheets and many marked "Intentionally Left Blank". It looked like Boeing employees were ordered to clean out their desks.


Added:

After the Korean Airline shot down by Russia in the 80's, some airlines asked for a missile strike malfunction. There's no emergency actions the crew can take, but the instructors wanted it. Instructors, besides accepting the sims, also have complete say over training systems including malfunction selections.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

6. GIGO

[hatrack]

7. Yeah, hundreds of deaths from your shitty, corner-cutting aircraft . . .

Comedy gold, I tell you! Hi-larious!!!!

See if you have jobs in six months, you supercilious pricks.

[Tipperary]

10. I find this incredibly frightening.

On many levels. Is there no such thing as integrity anymore?