Posted on 07/10/2024 5:09:12 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Let’s face it: Boeing has the government by the balls.
It is, after all, America’s only commercial aircraft manufacturer, with over 170,000 employees in Washington State, South Carolina, and Virginia, most of whom make middle-class to upper-middle-class wages. In dollar volume, it is the country’s largest exporter. And to top it off, Boeing is a critical defense contractor, with a space division that recently sent two astronauts to the International Space Station (though thanks to problems with Boeing’s spacecraft, it’s a little unclear when, exactly, those astronauts will return to earth).
Late Sunday night, faced with the possibility of a trial, Boeing agreed to a settlement offered by the Department of Justice, pleading guilty to a felony for the two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that caused the death of 346 passengers and crew. The felony charge comes with a probationary period of three years and a fine of nearly $500 million. Boeing has also agreed to invest $455 million to bolster its safety and compliance programs and accept the oversight of an independent compliance monitor who will submit annual reports to the government. And board members will be required to meet with families of the victims.
The Justice Department will no doubt characterize the settlement as just punishment for a recidivist company. Don’t believe it. This is a company that murdered those 346 people as surely as if it had lined them up against a wall and shot them. There was no pilot error involved in those crashes, nor was it the result of some unlucky accident. Those planes crashed because Boeing had cut so many corners in rushing this new 737 model to the marketplace that a disaster was inevitable. As one engineer memorably put it in an email to a colleague: “This airplane was designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”
What’s more, to a company the size of Boeing, with $78 billion in annual revenue, a half billion-dollar fine is pocket change. Back in 2021, Boeing accepted a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department that called for it to pay $2.5 billion, including a criminal fine, money for the victims’ families, and compensation to its airline customers. Even that amount wasn’t enough to cause Boeing to change its ways: in January 2024, a door blew out of a 737 Max in flight, proving that safety was still not a top priority on the factory floor. Thus began the latest round of investigations, recriminations, and Boeing’s promise, with this settlement, to do better.....
“Apparently it was not a factory fault.”
The article contradicts that. Try reading it.
“Investigators believe the bolts were not re-installed while the plane received some repair work at Boeing’s factory in Washington state last year..”
Key words. “At the factory”
L
Maybe Boeing’s real problem is that they’re not making ox carts.
WIKI
Two 737 MAXs have had deadly crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 in late 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in early 2019, in which 346 people died. Contributing to the accidents was the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which activated unexpectedly due to erroneous angle of attack data, and remained active because of pilot error caused by inadequate training. The aircraft was subsequently grounded worldwide from March 2019 to November 2020, with the FAA garnering criticism for being the last major authority to ground it. Investigations found Boeing did not fully inform operators about MCAS and found shortcomings in the FAA’s certification process for the aircraft. The accidents and grounding cost Boeing an estimated US$20 billion in fines, compensation and legal fees as of 2020, with indirect losses of more than US$60 billion from 1,200 cancelled orders. In 2021, Boeing paid US$2.5 billion in penalties and compensation to settle the DOJ’s fraud conspiracy case against the company. Further investigations revealed the FAA and Boeing had colluded on recertification test flights and attempted to cover up important information, and that the FAA had retaliated against whistleblowers. The FAA cleared the aircraft to return to service on November 18, 2020, subject to mandated design and training changes. Canadian and European authorities followed in late January 2021. By December 2021, when Chinese authorities lifted their grounding, 180 of 195 countries had cleared the 737 MAX to return to service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX
I understand all that, there was untold amounts of fraud that was committed all over the bank system and on Wall Street, the labeling of Mortgaged Backed Securities as AAA when it was obvious that many of the mortgages packaged in the securities were clearly fraudulent.
A few savvy financial people saw what was going on and made huge fortunes betting against home mortgages, people like Kyle Bass and Michael Burry.
I guarantee you that Space X does not have a DEI program and that their Human Resources department does not have more control of the company than Program Management and Engineering.
I don’t know much about the Boesky case, but I am convinced that Michael Milken was one of the most brilliant financial minds this country has ever seen. Even the media reports and biographies of him that tried to paint him in a bad light revealed a lot about how a great analytical mind works. His only mistake was that he didn’t hire some feckless, compromised loser like Joe Biden or Lindsey Graham or Nikki Haley to cover for him.
If you're going to prosecute its executives, then go after the thugs and Blackrock and Vanguard who pushed them into DEI in the first place.
Please.
Of course, this demise of a great corporation has nearly as much to do with the decline of culture around Seattle as the coercion by said major mutual fund managers.
When your top priority in hiring engineers is their sex or skin color or their Marxists ideology or their preferred pronouns, you are bound to get bottom shelf products.
The part that is missing from all of the Boeing bashing reporting is that the same malfunction happened numerous times in the US and the pilots were able to gain control of the aircraft.
Yes, it still is a major design flaw with a sprinkling of FAA coziness and a dusting of coverup. What it also does is gives us a glimpse into the future. Highly trained, competent pilots can deal with these problems. Third world trained pilots cannot.
Merit and skill have their place. The cockpit is one of those places.
DEI and tokenism have their place too. Congressional security and motor pool are some of those places.
EC
key words “on the factory floor”
you left out the word “floor” in your reply, as did I in my post
“factory” implies manufacturing
factory
“a building or group of buildings with facilities for the manufacture of goods.”
I suspect separate building(s) are used for repair work and not for manufacturing.
I left out the word “floor”, so yes, I made a mistake.
Apparently it was not a factory fault. [what I wrote, sorry]
->
Apparently it was not a manufacturing fault. [what I should have wrote]
Bolts not being put in doors and tires falling off is because workers are focused on things other than their job or because workers are not qualified for a job with that attention to detail.
I’m not sure these institutional investment firms had much to do with it. Boeing's DEI nonsense is almost certainly tied to its obligations as a U.S. government contractor.
Agreed. At the root is the Board of Directors. They are responsible for the policies and the hiring of the executives.
Specifically, there is an HR (Human Resources) subcommittee. They are the core of Boeing’s problems. But the whole Board approves their recommendations.
“Even that amount wasn’t enough to cause Boeing to change its ways: in January 2024, a door blew out of a 737 Max in flight, proving that safety was still not a top priority on the factory floor.”
“Investigators believe the [door plug] bolts were not re-installed while the plane received some repair work at Boeing’s factory in Washington state last year.”
You Want to Fix Congress? Prosecute Its Leaders.
There is an element of truth about Boeing costing people their lives, but millions of Americans lost their homes which was devastating all on its own.
The single biggest asset millions of Americans have is their home, artificially inflating real estate prices to crazy new levels and then watching that collapse cost average Americans trillions in lost wealth and many lost their homes, were they stupid for buying into the insanity, sure a lot of them were, but they were urged on by Banks and Wall Street companies who all were allowed to skate and made whole by average Americans.
The leveraged buyout junk bond market created by Michael Milkin was brilliant, but it also created what we see today, venture capital companies buying up companies only to strip them of their assets which get sold off for profit while the underlying business is allowed to go bankrupt.
Do some research into the demise of Red Lobster, they were sold in 2015 by Darden Restaurants to Golden Gate Capital which proceeded to sell off all the real estate Red Lobster owned, the ongoing restaurants have been allowed to rot on the vine, while the false story about the “Endless Shrimp” promotion was blamed on the demise.
WIKI
Hours later, the FAA ordered the grounding and inspection of 171 aircraft from the global 737 MAX 9 fleet with similar configuration to the incident aircraft, along with corrective action if necessary. Alaska Airlines and United Airlines both reported finding loose door plug bolts on some of the aircraft inspected.
On February 5, 2024, the NTSB said in its preliminary report that the four key bolts that should have secured the door plug were not installed on the accident aircraft as delivered to Alaska Airlines by Boeing following opening the door plug at Boeing’s Renton factory to repair damaged rivets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX
Why would rivets get damaged on a civilian airliner?
Most modern fighter aircraft are unstable.
It's a trade off, stable aircraft are less maneuverable than aircraft that are unstable, i.e. are able to turn on a dime.
In combat, maneuverability and speed are life.
The pilot decides what he (or she) wants the plane to do and the computers decides what control surface positions will make that happen.
The opportunity to reap reward must always have the risk of consequence and failure.
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