Boeing 737 Max again, it would be nice if the windows [door plugs] stayed in!

[floobydust]

It was surreal watching that live. But this is the feedback loop? Get yelled at, humiliated in a Senate hearing? Meanwhile take home $35M.
I'd do it, take the hit and be set for life. None of us here will make that much money our entire lives.
Although I think corporal punishment needs to return, CEO's included.

Boeing makes US Minuteman ICBM's and subverting Boeing would be a huge goal by many hostile foreign countries.
It's another angle to all this bullshit that I'm starting to believe because not much is improving, as it must.

[coppercone2]

"What the market demands"? I thought that was surviving, living through your flight, no crash, not sucked out the door, no PTSD  It got overtaken by what the stock market demands - maximum short-term profit.

I've always engineered products for reliability and long life- but that's old school now. You would not believe the amount of flak I get for specifying Chemi-con/Nichicon capacitors instead of the "good enough" china specials that last precisely 3 years - and are 1/20th the price. The Consumer Attitude has permeated everything including management theory. Bean counters want it done as quickly and cheaply as possible, even though that has drastic consequences. As long as you can CYA.

Auto-throttle is to save fuel and engine wear and tear for takeoff (not sure why it's used for landing) . It's got serious problems, in service on the 737-800 to this day - who do you blame for that?
MCAS being outsourced to unqualified S/W people, on the cheap- what the market demands? No, I think it's the stock market justifying criminal action to feed their greed. As long as you an CYA.
Now Boeing is taking engineers out of other divisions to help out Commercial, oops should not have fired all those engineers. It's so much like a clown car.
Who would want to work as an engineer at Boeing?

bro, the surmise is, its run marauder style now. what like 60% of upper managmenet are always threatening to quit or lookin for other jobs. viking shit


if you even say something like "well I don't wanna deal with this in 5 years" your get "your an idiot for planning to stay at this company for 5 years". I mean usually its pretty much bullshit, but they act like that. I think people think they gets em more raises so its de facto standard now. and quality is shit because everything turns into a 'back of the van' type operation. Then you got someone thats been there for 20 years tryin to convince you that being a 'wear element' is the way to go to your bright career (at a different company), so you don't buy the chemi-con and gold plating of significant thickness. Why did that guy quit after 6 months? well its part of my plan see, to get you a better job see. 

its the corrosion style of management, that is, get some engineer to act like a zinc corrosion protector (just throw it out when it takes too much damage).

Job description : galvanic anode

then the industry is like a onion router, no one in any senior position is actually senior. they just hire replacements from the job pool at senior levels. At some point I think there needs to be another title that ensures the person your dealing with was actually AT that company to get any kind of seniority, you know... to weigh his ability to judge 'senior' level decisions. Because the way alot of things are structured right now, it should say "intern engineer" instead of "senior engineer".

so its like, the safety approval committee, comprised of three intern engineers, hired at a senior level... judged that...

[CatalinaWOW]

You seem to be saying deaths are acceptable, then forecast how many 737-related we'll see this year that are perfectly acceptable according to statistics of XX million boardings/year.
I'm saying engineers want zero deaths. How terrible to have your heart in your craft. Engineers have all the responsibility and none of the authority, and with finance bros, MBA's running things it's now impossible to do good work, as well as undesirable in terms of short-term profit.

In some sense deaths are acceptable.  In some industries this fact is faced openly.  Others not so much.  Yes, zero deaths is desirable.  But there is no such thing.

An instructive example is seat belts.  Anyone who actually pays attention to data realizes that wearing seat belts in cars reduces injuries and saves lives.  But for various reasons not everyone wants to wear a safety belt.  May not be rational, it is true.  So at one point in the US it was decided to make automated seat belts mandatory.  But no one could figure out how to make a really effective automatic seat belt.  They didn't protect as well as regular seat belts and were inconvenient enough that they were relatively often disabled or removed.  It turns out that the increase in usage from these things just about compensated for the reduced protection.  All of this occurs against a background  trying to achieve minimum deaths.

Of course zero deaths could be more nearly approached easily by reducing the maximum automobile speed to 7 km/hr.  There would still be some deaths due to things like people driving off cliffs or being crushed between two vehicles.  But I don't see anyone clamoring for this solution, because nearly everyone values time saving more than they value the incremental gain in safety.

Are you saying that if you as an engineer were given the authority (taking it away from the finance people and anyone else) that you would enforce speed governors on all automobiles at some speed near walking?  If so, I respect your position though I disagree with it.  If not, as the old joke says, I know what you are and we are only dickering over price.

[Gyro]

Ouch $$243.6m for criminal fraud conspiracy and no day in court, that's got to sting - just not very much.  Probably cheaper than reforming!

Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge

Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the US found the company violated a deal meant to reform it after two fatal crashes by its 737 Max planes that killed 346 passengers and crew.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) said the plane-maker had also agreed to pay a criminal fine of $243.6m (£190m).

However, the families of the people who died on the flights five years ago have criticised it as a "sweetheart deal" that would allow Boeing to avoid full responsibility for the deaths.

The settlement must now be approved by a US judge.

...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjjjj85z0lno

[jpanhalt]

There's a reason defendants in US Federal trials either plead guilty or get their cases dismissed.  Of cases that were not dismissed in 2022 (66,053), 97% (approx) plead guilty.  There were 290 convictions, which compared to the total number that weren't dismissed is a 99.6% conviction rate (https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/data_tables/jb_d4_0930.2022.pdf ).

Of course, that's distorted by the number who plead guilty, but the message is clear.*  In US Federal courts, if you can't get your case dismissed cop a plea, which is what Boeing did.  The Boeing CEO 's salary for 2024 was approved at $32.8 million.  Not bad for someone who can't even throw a football.

*Of cases that went to trial (1,669), there were 1379 convictions (82.6%).

[tom66]

I wonder if Boeing shareholders stood to make more than ~$250m in additional profit by cutting corners.  If so, the fine is just the cost of doing business and this behaviour will continue.

[tggzzz]

I wonder if Boeing shareholders stood to make more than ~$250m in additional profit by cutting corners.  If so, the fine is just the cost of doing business and this behaviour will continue.

Arguable more directly, what did the directors forfeit?

[Gyro]

Yes, when you factor in the stock, it does seem like a win-win. Boeing get off the hook with a negligible slap - Ok, they have to bring their share of  Spirit back on board (Airbus are taking over facilities in Europe that supply them, Northern Ireland an maybe others), but maybe they can scrape some additional efficiency savings there. The shareholders make a healthy profit from it getting settled and coming out of the storm into calmer waters. The Senators on the committee get to go back to sleep after some very useful public exposure. Even Calhoun, after his couple of days of grovelling, gets to go back to playing golf and knowing nothing about anything happening on his watch, while contemplating his upcoming platinum handshake. Even the whistleblowers get to go back to try and rebuild what's left of their lives, well most of them anyway!

Surely somebody must have lost out    Ah yes, the victims and their families. Oh well, we can't all be winners.

[langwadt]

I wonder if Boeing shareholders stood to make more than ~$250m in additional profit by cutting corners.  If so, the fine is just the cost of doing business and this behaviour will continue.

"Boeing annual revenue for 2023 was $77.794B, a 16.79% increase from 2022"

250M is ~0.3% They probably spend more on coffee cups

[SiliconWizard]

I don't understand how they manage to still have growth.

[CatalinaWOW]

They grow because the demand is large.  There are at most two viable vendors of aircraft in this class (the number depends on whether you consider Boeing viable).

I really don't understand the clamor for a huge punitive penalty.  The argument has been that costs (money spent on making good airplanes) have been cut below what is required to do it right.  Any penalty that would be economically stressing would only make this problem worse. 

One can only hope that this shot across the bow, combined with all of the bad PR and other factors will result in an improvement.  But if it doesn't it seems likely that something like the multi-billion dollar penalty some demanded would only speed the death spiral.  Leaving only one vendor.   Which has very real dangers of its own.  Airbus has had its rocky moments.

[SiliconWizard]

They grow because the demand is large.  There are at most two viable vendors of aircraft in this class (the number depends on whether you consider Boeing viable).

Would require knowing in which category of planes they sell the most. Large ones? Then, yes these are the two viable vendors.
But for medium- and small-size planes, there's a few others in the western world, like Embraer, Bombardier, that make very decent planes. If I had to make a decision, these days, I would go for one of these rather than Boeing, as long as they have the right models in the quantities that I'd need.

As to outside of the western world, there are some companies (in China for instance) that do provide a large part of the chinese, and asian markets.

So sure there is demand and all, but a +16.79% growth in troubled times for a company in thix context is, to me, a surprisingly good result, which is "unfortunately" good enough not to give too many incentives to make the drastic changes that the company needs.

[vad]

It is a delusion to think that the fine would come out of shareholders’ and executives’ pockets. The cost would be passed on to consumers with a certain multiplication factor. Some may say that the factor would have to be less than 1, and Boeing would bear at least some of the costs. However, I believe that the multiplication factor would be much greater than unity because Boeing would pass full amount plus legal costs, and because of the multiple layers of middlemen that stand between Boeing and passengers of commercial flights. The $250 million fine that will go into the US federal government coffers would actually be paid as several billion dollars by passengers, such as a mate traveling on the Kangaroo route from Melbourne to visit his aunt in Sheffield.

[vad]

And another thought… Should the US government, instead of collecting fine revenue, be held responsible? Wasn’t it the FAA that issued the airworthiness certificate to the 737 MAX without requiring a new type rating, despite the aircraft having significantly different aerodynamic characteristics from the rest of the 737 family?

[SiliconWizard]

And another thought… Should the US government, instead of collecting fine revenue, be held responsible? Wasn’t it the FAA that issued the airworthiness certificate to the 737 MAX without requiring a new type rating, despite the aircraft having significantly different aerodynamic characteristics from the rest of the 737 family?

The FAA should certainly share liability.

[madires]

FAA orders inspection of 2,600 Boeing 737s over oxygen mask issue: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-orders-inspections-2600-boeing-737-airplanes-over-oxygen-mask-issue-2024-07-08/

[tggzzz]

I really don't understand the clamor for a huge punitive penalty.

I understand the reasons for the clamour.

The penalty only has to be large enough to change behaviour. That raises the question of the source of the behaviour and who was responsible for starting, continuing, and not finishing the behaviour.

That's not the shareholders: they are too distant from the day-to-day detailed operations.

It is the top canopy managers - so they should feel any penalty. That will be much cheaper and more effective - iff it could be put into effect.

[jpanhalt]

The fine is equivalent to the list price of 2.5 737 Max aircraft.  In terms of Boeing's gross revenue, as other have said, it's relatively trivial.   The actual plea deal is critically important.  Boeing pled guilty to criminal charges.  That makes it a felon.  Now what happens? 

As a convicted felon,  some have pointed out that Boeing may be excluded from future government and military contracts, and its executives can still be prosecuted for those crimes.  Those details are almost certainly a part of any deal.

[m k]

A company doesn't do much, people do.

So the penalty should be directed to people in charge.
Personal fine would be much better, cumulative even better than that.

Sociopaths don't care much about others.
So jail time is finally the thing that matters.
It can be twisted in ones head of course, but time is time.
My guess is that 25 to life would change things.

Indirect is clearly a fine line, but knowingly is also clearly different.
(Pinto)

[tom66]

They grow because the demand is large.  There are at most two viable vendors of aircraft in this class (the number depends on whether you consider Boeing viable).

Would require knowing in which category of planes they sell the most. Large ones? Then, yes these are the two viable vendors.
But for medium- and small-size planes, there's a few others in the western world, like Embraer, Bombardier, that make very decent planes. If I had to make a decision, these days, I would go for one of these rather than Boeing, as long as they have the right models in the quantities that I'd need.

As to outside of the western world, there are some companies (in China for instance) that do provide a large part of the chinese, and asian markets.

So sure there is demand and all, but a +16.79% growth in troubled times for a company in thix context is, to me, a surprisingly good result, which is "unfortunately" good enough not to give too many incentives to make the drastic changes that the company needs.

Embraer is certainly one to watch.  They are considering launching an A320 / 737 competitor - they already compete well in the small business class jet sector.  Their safety record is excellent.  One of their smaller jets was involved in a pilot/ATC-caused midair collision and it landed safely despite suffering airframe damage, but the 737 it collided with went down.  (This is not really an inditement on the 737, given half of the 737's left wing was sheared off, most planes would not fly in such a situation.  But it's still impressive that the Embraer managed to land, and was put back into service after repairs.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907

Bombadier has been killed off by Airbus since they now own 75% of the A220 programme.

[vad]

Do I take it correctly that pleading guilty opens the door for compensation claims by victims’ families in civil courts, and that the settlements of these claims could significantly exceed the imposed fine? If so, the $250M is just a starter.

[guenthert]

The fine is equivalent to the list price of 2.5 737 Max aircraft.  In terms of Boeing's gross revenue, as other have said, it's relatively trivial.   The actual plea deal is critically important.  Boeing pled guilty to criminal charges.  That makes it a felon.  Now what happens? 

As a convicted felon,  some have pointed out that Boeing may be excluded from future government and military contracts, and its executives can still be prosecuted for those crimes.  Those details are almost certainly a part of any deal.

I see a split coming -- one (shell) part of the company formerly known as Boing assumes blame and responsibilites (and might go Chapter 11 soonish), the other part continues to be allowed to bid on government contracts ...

[tom66]

The US government will never allow Boeing to actually go bankrupt.  They are a strategic industry supplier.   Just like Airbus will never go bankrupt, EU countries would step in.

[MT]

The US government will never allow Boeing to actually go bankrupt.  They are a strategic industry supplier.   Just like Airbus will never go bankrupt, EU countries would step in.

Not if countries goes bankrupt and USA is at least 96trillion usd debt bankrupt and counting.

[tom66]

The US government will never allow Boeing to actually go bankrupt.  They are a strategic industry supplier.   Just like Airbus will never go bankrupt, EU countries would step in.

Not if countries goes bankrupt and USA is at least 96trillion usd debt bankrupt and counting.

Well, we are drifting into politics, but it is very much a point of debate in economics if a country that prints its own currency can ever truly go bankrupt.

Besides, the US is an incredibly rich country.  Yes it has a lot of debt, but debt isn't automatically bad, especially when a great deal (33%) of that is owed to its own citizens and corporations in some way (401k's, bonds, etc), and another 40% or so is owed to itself in some way (accountancy headaches abound.)