Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

Re:Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for ... by snarf21 on Friday October 15, 2021 @08:47AM (#28877137)

I think the other approach is to have more corporate whistle blower programs with teeth and upside. In a case like this, lots of people knew everything wasn't on the up and up. But it is hard to get someone to understand something when their job depends on not understanding it (Upton Sinclair). However, if the whistle blower programs came with immediate cash (after initial proof was obtained) with more to come and potentially relocation and identity change, people would be more likely to come forward.

Fighting something like this in court plus media scrutiny will basically ruin someone's life and make them almost unhire-able in their field. Excepting someone to ruin their family's life for the greater good isn't likely. There won't always be a young single ideologue who is willing to move overseas to escape his own government. There are lots of major crime systems where someone is the spouse of the criminal and knows what is going on but how are they going to give up their home and life for their kids while also putting their life at risk for the sake of doing the right thing. People have shown that they will do the right thing if you make it easy enough and safe enough.

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Re:Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for ... by josho on Friday October 15, 2021 @09:28AM (#28877461)

I can’t help but feel that this is all by design. Legislators require financing from corporations for re-election, corps don’t want whistleblowers because it risks their bottom line. Therefore legislators don’t improve protections.

Does everything come back to campaign finance reform?

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Re:Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for ... by snarf21 on Friday October 15, 2021 @09:35AM (#28877525)

It could be a factor for sure. I don't think campaign finance reform will ever happen but whistle blower could. I've given up hope on the altruistic billionaire to do things the government is reluctant to.

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Re:Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for ... by curryst on Sunday October 17, 2021 @11:06PM (#28901861)

> basically ruin someone's life and make them almost unhire-able in their field.

It will make them almost unhireable everywhere. Even outside their field, they're still a risk. They've now got a very public "troublemaker" label.

The prizes would also have to be pretty large. We're talking "never have to work again" large, because that's a very real possibility, or at least a very real perceived concern.

We're talking people who make a good living. For people not close to retirement, it's probably a multi-million dollar number. At $200k/year, that's $2 million per decade, and not including potential raises. After you pay income taxes on the prize, you probably need it to be close to $10m to break even.

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Re:Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for ... by snarf21 on Monday October 18, 2021 @08:49AM (#28904864)

I was assuming they would be even higher. However, look at the economic damage being done by things like the opioid epidemic or the lives lost from these lies inside Boeing. We spend hundreds of billions on boondoggles, it doesn't seem like putting aside $5B per year to make the world better is much of a strain for the US government.

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