I disagree that anything was misrepresented. After two airliner crashes I think it is clear that the "system" (in this case the ability of the FAA to provide sufficient oversight to ensure safety of these planes and companies like Boeing to provide the FAA with the information they need) is broken. Wouldn't we all agree that the entire point of this inquiry was to "work backwards from there" and figure out where things could be improved?

I'm less clear on what Sam Graves means when he says "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act," but I can see why people would be upset. It seems to me that we don't need input from anyone after two crashed airliners, be they safety experts or not: there clearly are areas in which the FAA's processes can be improved and they should be improved ASAP.

I don't think the parent comment misrepresented anything at all. Even without reading the article yet, I assumed "our system" referred to the government's system (i.e. the FAA's process).

It takes some pretty significant mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the FAA's approval process wasn't critically flawed in the case of the MAX.

The FAA's approval process was the outcome of ideology that government should not work the way it had been working. That there were too many regulations and too much oversight, and now it was time for businesses (Boeing in this case) to have a stronger role in certification and FAA a reduced role. Whether this ideology is about protecting corporate masters, supporting a sort of neo-feudalism where big companies are the new aristocrats, or whether it's sincere belief that free markets always produce better results - almost doesn't matter. The consistent theme is that public servants should not really have the final say on airplane certification. Say they have the final say but ensure they don't have the funding, political, or legal capital to consistently actualize it.

The reality is one party long believes in giving business a lot of slack, and then only speaks in grumpy platitudes about the limits of business free-for-all when people die. They don't want a bullshit idea to be seen as bullshit. They just want to profit as much as possible with a number of deaths that the public finds acceptable enough to not call b.s. on the system itself.

If any event involving hundreds of deaths at the same time could be pinned on a person, they'd go to prison. This system is expressly designed to spread the blame and obfuscate just enough that fines will be paid, and life goes on. Except for those who died.

I did not try to misrepresent anything. That first quote I left out because it was standard politician's doublespeak, i.e. not admitting anything nor committing to anything.

Yes, my comment was a gut reaction. That reaction was purely based on the gall of calling into question whether the system is broken at all. To formalize my thought process:

1. $system exists to certify machines in $domain (premise)

2. 346 people die in two related $domain failures (premise)

3. $politician rejects the notion that $system is broken (premise)

4. a well-functioning system is apparently allowed to result in 346 deaths (conclusion)

Perhaps you’re just used to dealing with an industry that has little physical risks where the thought of people dying in a normal functioning system seems hard to believe?

Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations. It’s regarded as a well-functioning system. Are Democrats fine with thousands of deaths every year?

>> Hundreds to thousands of people die everyday in vehicles

But not due to systemic issues like the Toyota unintended accelerations.

Deaths arising from systemic issues in automotive manufacture or poor road design are relatively rare in comparison to driver-induced deaths due to e.g. impairment by alcohol.

>> and the NTSB doesn’t even open investigations

It does for (systemic issues - the issues in question this whole conversation)

But a lot of the causes of car accidents ARE systemic!

"driving while 80 years old"

"driving while on 4 hours of sleep in the past 72"

"driving with the brake warning light on"

I'd count all of the above as "systemic", and bet that they cause a multitude of deaths. We just don't want to accept the societal and monetary cost to eliminate them. Others, like "driving while intoxicated", we penalize but still do not take more than superficial steps to combat. (Superficial from the perspective of aviation, at least)

So, corollary. Should we completely rework the process for certifying cars (safety testing) and drivers (drivers licenses, training) due to the FAR more than 346 roadway deaths last year?

Adding just a few lessons from Aviation - things like "only allow the use of spare parts that are approved by the manufacturer", "forbid use when diagnostic errors are present", "mandate pilot rest periods and duty cycles" and "revoke the license of anyone with a sufficiently serious medical condition" would have huge consequences. I'm personally confident that each of those would reduce driving fatalities in the US by more than 346/yr. Of course, they'd also destroy the livelihoods of millions, make car travel far more expensive, and have (prior to 2020) unfathomable social consequences. But hey, any system that allowed that many deaths must be broken!

> Which makes it clear they mostly disagree about what the investigation results say about FAA, not Boeing business.

Yes, but for me, regulatory capture seems to be a central issue in what went wrong, so I am highly skeptical that this is not an ideologically-flavored conclusion.

FWIW, I first approached this incident (prior to the second crash) from the point of view that it was probably either pilot error and/or an unfortunate malfunction, so I think I can fairly say that I have come to my conclusions in a forwards direction.

> regulatory capture

The fact that this is an accepted business practice is insane to me.

Nobody can come up with an alternative. the only people who are experts in something are people who could be good in either a regulatory role or a business role. Thus there is and always will be a revolving door because when one side decides they need more experts the obvious place to look is the other side of the door.

Note that without the revolving door both sides would be worse off. (Unless you take some other action to mitigate this - I can't think of anything but there might be a complex answer)

There's a lot that could be done.

One of the reasons DARPA program managers sit a fixed term is to precisely prevent careerism and castle building. The reason members of congress have a staff is to support them in researching topics.

But ultimately it comes down to the public, being informed by media, holding politicians responsible. I may disagree with portions of Bernie and AOC's political platforms, but one thing I don't have to worry about with them is that they're in the pocket of a company like Boeing.

We get the government we ask for. Want better? Raise your expectations and vote accordingly.

Sure, you don't have to worry about Bernie or AOC being in anyone's pocket, but the only thing they're experts at is getting elected...

Another approach could be sufficently good communication. If you need former experts in writing the regulation to be compliant or need to work in the industry to know how it works enough to regulate it implies that the communication on both sides is missing crucial information.

The process of doing so and ensuring it would be very laborious in that you would have to document every last detail, go through and make sure they were covered, make sure they were retained, and make sure that their understanding of every last detail is identical. Making matters worse is the mix of implicit and explicit. If you use a sprocket on something the design implicitly states "Do not allow it to rotate that way!" An added strut on a panel already more than capable of supporting itself and the rest of the structure may be redundant or needed to shift resonant frequencies into a range where they would be irrelevant.

No, to write the regulations you need to understand the problems. The people who understand the problem probably started in industry.

Indeed, and there are plenty of people in the industry who understand the problems and want to do the right thing. These are the people we need to give a voice to. People who understand, for example, that the arguments for not informing pilots about MCAS were self-serving sophistry with no technical or human-factors justification.

I don't think it's necessarily an accepted business practice, but a known failure mode of our regulatory model.

How often does an entity, when investigating itself, accurately and truthfully identify the issues the entity is facing? I have immense respect for the FAA and if any regulator could do it I would think the FAA would conduct a more honest self-investigation than most US regulators. But it’s still a pretty dubious proposition that people in Congress responsible for the agency’s oversight would defer to the judgment of the FAA in determining the agency’s accountability.

It’s ironically not unlike the regulatory landscape that led to the Boeing situation in the first place - the entity charged with oversight was much too deferential to those it was supposed to be overseeing.

>> A statement from ranking member Sam Graves of Missouri says, "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act."

This statement alone is hilarious considering that the FAA approval is a poster-child example of regulatory capture.

Here's the secret: the FAA let's the companies SELF-REGULATE and SELF-APPROVE planes.

The FAA did NOT approve the Max, because Boeing did.

>>A total of 79 companies are allowed under federal policies to let engineers or other workers considered qualified report on safety to the FAA on systems deemed not to be the most critical rather than leaving all inspections to the government agency.

>>To critics, it's a regulatory blind spot.

Once you know how this works, that statement by bad-faith-actor Sam Graves is laid bare. Of course we know how to improve the processes: Step 1: Don't put the Fox in charge of the Hens!

>>> How you can misrepresent the other side so badly and still be so self righteous is beyond me."

Something you yourself could have learned from before posting!

Bad faith brought to you by Boeing:

"Here are the total contributions from Boeing to members of the House Aviation Subcommittee during the 2018 election cycle. Republicans: Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) $0. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) $9,700. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) $5,999. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) $6,000. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) $10,000. John Katko (R-New York) $15,400. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) $0. Brian Mast (R-Florida) $7,681. Paul Mitchell (R-Michigan) $5,000. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) $3,000. David Rouzer (R-North Carolina) $2,000. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pennsylvania) $8,000. Ross Spano (R-Florida) $0. Pete Stauber (R-Minnesota) $0. Daniel Webster (R-Florida) $0. Rob Woodall (R-Georgia) $2,000. Don Young (R-Alaska) $1,000. Total Boeing Contributions to Republicans on the Aviation Subcommittee $75,780. Average for each of the 17 members: $4,457.

Democrats: Colin Allred (D-Texas) $94. Anthony Brown (D-Maryland) $8,500. Julia Brownley (D-California) $0. Salud Carbajal (D-California) $5,000. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) $10,000. Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) $2,000. Angie Craig (D-Minnesota) $703. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) $122. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) $5,000. Jesus Garcia (D-Illinois) $0. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) $6,000. Henry Johnson (D-Georgia) $1,000. Rick Larsen (D-Washington) $7,048. Daniel Lipinski (D-Illinois) $6,000. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) $0. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) $3,500. Grace Napolitano (D-Washington) $0. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) $0. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey) $1,000. Stacey Plaskett (D-USVI) $0. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) $2. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) $3,000. Total Amount Boeing contributions to Democrats on the Aviation Subcommittee in 2018 cycle: $58,969. Average for each of the 22 members. $2,680.

Total contributed by Boeing to the 39 members of the Subcommittee: $134,749. Average per member: $3,455."

Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...

"What is not surprising is that congress can be bought, what is surprising is how cheap it is" or something to that effect.

>Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) $2

You know, there has to be a story behind this. I'm not sure what it is, but I hope it is good.

> Don't put the Fox in charge of the Hens!

The implication of course being that Boeing and its engineers want to kill people and the only thing standing between them and their goals of mass murder is the government.

The implication being that Boeing wanted to ship this plane on time, even if that meant cutting corners on safety, except that it isn't an implication because it is literally what happened.

The engineers are constrained in authority. Management is ultimately responsible.

It's not that management wants to kill people on a personal/visceral level, it's that they're willing to take on unacceptable risks in order to lock in short term monetary gains. We have seen this over and over again with modern large corporations, across industries.

And is it surprising management behaves this way? Their compensation is directly tied to short term stock value shifts. Meanwhile, when the game of musical chairs stops, they know that they'll still be able to make a lateral career shift to another similar company and just play the same game all over again.

I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken.

I agree this doesn't exactly equate to the conclusion drawn about republicans, but it does further expose that there is no limit to generating partisan/political quotes where they don't belong.

Regardless of who you side with, note that many on the congressional investigative team took contributions from Boeing and tried to steer blame to individual pilots/airlines (including Sam Graves and some democrats).

Source: https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/blaming-dead...

>" I don't claim to know much about FAA procedure for approving flight of new aircraft, but I think it's safe to assume that whatever testing, regulation, other processes they have in place that allowed for this type of grave error to fly is either insufficient or broken."

That's quite the assumption. I don't even know what 'broken' would mean for a certification process as byzantine as the one used by the FAA. I think you should either be more specific, or take the time to learn a bit about the systems, processes, and failure modes of complex multi-stakeholder processes.

Let's make this easy, a fully FAA compliant aircraft fell from the sky, twice. Therefore, the certification process is broken, as in it does not actually work at judging the airworthiness of a new jet due the reason in the previous sentence.

> "if aviation and safety experts determine that areas in the FAA's processes for certifying aircraft and equipment can be improved, then Congress will act."

Climate experts determined things too. Congress has acted... by ignoring those experts. Why should we expect them to listen this time when they have demonstrated an unwillingness to listen in the past? Judging by history, they aren't planning on acting.