You missed the point. It's not about the money, it's that rewiring might actually be less safe.
No, I didn't. That's what Boeing claims by attempting to extrapolate the safety record of a plane built under previous Boeing management who had safety as priority one to the safety record of the current plane built under Boeing/McDonnell management that prioritized money over safety.
The problem is that the previous wiring might be safe given that all the surrounding systems are also built to the same safety standard as the previous 737. Unfortunately, we have plenty of evidence that the surrounding systems probably are not built to the same standard.
In addition, the airplanes responsible for this rule coming into being didn't have a safety problem either--until they suddenly did.
It's not that the planes developed a safety problem - it's that we learned that the wires being that close is a bad idea and that all planes built after we realized that should not make the same mistake.
How much risk, I don't know. But slavishley following rules without bothering to understand them isn't a good idea.
Either those wires are safe, so leave them, or they are not, so rewire 6,000 grandfathered planes.
Doing some sort of hybrid where you rewire these planes, but not those, just based on the name, isn't logical.
The MAXes where built after the regulation came into place therefore you better build it in. The same way you can't sell a new car without safety belts.
Even if the FAA cuts Boeing some slack here (which they shouldn't - these are safety rules that exist because hundreds of people had horrific deaths), the EASA will certainly not.
If the FAA accepts Boeing's excuse, they both would be liable in case the wiring causes an accident in the future, since both would have been negligent and knew fully well the wiring was not up to current standards.
Tough--they should have to rewire the plane.
They cut the corner (or missed the corner) and got caught. Too bad, so sad. Maybe fire a bunch of executives this time and I might have some more sympathy later.
> For once, I think Boeing does have a point here. This is the same wiring used on the 737NG, which AFAIK is considered the safest (or one of the safest, at least) airliner ever. The point about rerouting existing wiring introducing it's own potential hazard also seems like an entirely reasonable consideration.
"Nothing happened before" does not obviate the analysis that caused the rule to be created.
Aerospace rules are generally written in blood. Ignoring them tends to spill more blood.
This is exactly the kind of issue where your reputation is crucial. If your reputation is sterling, then nobody would blink about cutting you slack in this single instance. If, however, your reputation is such that there are likely even more instances like this that haven't been found, then you should get held to the letter of the law.