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A comment on Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard. Parent comment

Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by salawat on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @06:35PM (#25283300)
The issue isn't a really a physical one in principle here. It's an issue of corporate accountability.

You had corners cut to deliver a product that ended up killing people. There is no real room for doubt in that just from the material we have available.

So, what? What happens? What should happen? Everything go back to "normal"? Let the same people who ran things continue to profit off their wrongdoing? Accept that as long as you're one of only two rides in town that you have the security to deliver and recover from delivering a lethal product?

That's the issue. That's the reality we're taking out of this. It isn't even self-regulating anymore. There is no bankruptcy, no hammer, no reallocation of assets to those that can wield them more responsibly, no reset. Just a token gesture. The same Goliath just shrugs and moves on.

While I get that might be tenable or desirable to some, I'm not one of them. Realistic risk of falling flat on your face, being held to account, and not being able to just shrug it off and keep going keeps you honest.

Once you lose that, "What's a life here and there? Doesn't bother me. Can't make an onelette without cracking a few eggs."

The economy is not an omelette, and people are not eggs. Either we serve it, or it serves us. I know which side of that assertion I'm on.

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by pdonis on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @08:32PM (#25284181)
What alternative would you propose? You can't just remove Boeing as a company: they have tens of thousands of existing aircraft in the field that need to be maintained, and a large number of people who were not at fault in all of this whose jobs would be eliminated. So how do you hold the proper people accountable without doing so much collateral damage that the cost of that outweighs the benefits?

Also, responsibility doesn't just like with Boeing; the FAA certified the 737 MAX, and the rules that allowed that to happen were written by lawmakers and bureaucrats over a period of decades. How do you hold all of them accountable? Many, if not most, of those people aren't even actively working any more.

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by ClumsyPilot on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @09:47PM (#25284686)
The alternative is obvious - corporate manslaughter charges, aimed at management that knew plane was unsafe and pushed on regardless.

> " collateral damage so cost of that outweighs the benefits"

Do we have a system a justice or do we not? You seem to suggest some people are above the law. Let's see, could that possibly lead to corruption and abuse of power?

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by pdonis on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:13AM (#25285638)
> The alternative is obvious - corporate manslaughter charges, aimed at management that knew plane was unsafe and pushed on regardless.

And the obvious defense to that is that the FAA certified the plane. Then what?

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by dnautics on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:20AM (#25285682)
737 max should be permanently decertified, boeing should take all associated losses. FAA officials should be charged with manslaughter.
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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by ClumsyPilot on Thursday December 03, 2020 @08:10AM (#25288451)
FAA officials should face consequences, but boeing purposefully misled the regulator and got away scott-free.
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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by pdonis on Thursday December 03, 2020 @04:28PM (#25295294)
> FAA officials should face consequences

And their obvious defense is that they were acting entirely in accordance with statutes passed by Congress and regulations approved by the statutory process for doing that.

Then what?

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by josefx on Thursday December 03, 2020 @03:56AM (#25286994)
Certification was almost entirely done by Boeing in-house, with the design specs. it forwarded to the FAA not reflecting the final state of the system.
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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by pdonis on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:07AM (#25285607)
> You seem to suggest some people are above the law.

I'm suggesting no such thing. I'm simply pointing out that "justice" is not as simple as you are making it sound.

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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by skybrian on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @08:29PM (#25284159)
The CEO resigned, so it's questionable whether there are the same people running things. How much other management changed?
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Re:Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with med... by windthrown on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @09:57PM (#25284766)
The replacement CEO was previously the chairman of the board. So while they did change personnel, I am skeptical about how different their actual management practices are.
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