morrisond wrote:

Baldr wrote:

The people who are being increasingly discredited here are those with a shameful pattern of online behavior trying to pin the blame of the MAX crashes on "third world pilots."

[

Or the ones who can't read and understand that no one is trying to pin it on "third world pilots", but that the crashes unearthed serious inadequacies in the training systems as well.

Next time you are on final approach with a lot of turbulence and a severe crosswind just ask yourself - would I like a pilot with a ton of experience and the ability to fly in this situation or would a button pusher suffice?

The most telling comment I see from the emails is the one in the middle from Page 3 "Thanks. I fear that skill is not that intuitive any more with the younger pilots and those who have become too reliant on automation"

They just can't handle anything that is out of the ordinary at all and some people here seem fine with that and think that is an okay level of skill. If you want Cab drivers - why are we paying them Pilot's wages?

Well, I'd guess that most a.netters can read and that they understand what the term keep digging means.

MSPNWA wrote:

I agree. The "sacrificial" lamb tactic is the only motive I can think of for the release of communications that are irrelevant to MCAS design..

In addition to the "diversion" tactic as the media is occupied with these mails and doesn't have the time/enery to dig deeper for the more interesting mails. The question is what the FAA has. Did they only receive these mails or do they have more, which haven't leaked? We'll probably never know, especially should the mails contain information which affects the FAA as well.

BEG2IAH wrote:

Reading here how everyone is surprised after reading internal correspondence among Boeing employees, I wonder where do you guys work. When I was in consulting, we were all bitching like crazy at every lunch break. The language we used was ten times worse than this. Some people just love to be drama queens so their comments are even more intense. To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about these comments. I think it's a typical corporate BS life venting..

The big difference is that we don't put this stuff in mails or any other digital form. When we gossip (or venting our anger towards a decision by our regulator), we make sure that it cannot be reproduced and don't communicate that where outsiders (both internal and external employees) are present. Bitching at clients, boasting about lying to a regulator (or even lying without being coveraged of a senior) is not done and can mean termination of your employment in the company I work for. The respective Boeing employees (as I think/hope this is still a minority of Boeing employees) are either extremely arrogant or their compliance department is a disgrace (or a combination of both). Either way, I probably can look forward getting this Boeing case as a case study at our semi-annual compliance training.

morrisond wrote:

United787 wrote:

phollingsworth wrote:

However, I do wonder what you believe are the inherent flaws of the 737MAX that are not present on all other modern airliners?

This is an oversimplification but: those engines on those wings on that fuselage. There are hundreds of other posts that go into more detail but that is the inherent flaw. Boeing's 1st mistake, of many, was not doing a clean sheet design. Their 2nd mistake was not doing a clean sheet design...

SteelChair wrote:

I reassert what I said several months ago. Time to stop the MAX program take a $40B charge, fire up the NG program for 4 years, and design an all new airplane. Fire most of the top management, scrap all the MAX frames and totally remake the company. Employees will need to take pay and benefit cuts. Everyone will need to pull together to make it work.

This, exactly!

Yes - but just remember - as REV pointed out it would have been the same clowns designing the clean sheet.

At least it would have been a lot easier to hide any potential Aerodynamic flaws with FBW though.

Does anyone know if EASA actually flew it's tests this week? Did anyone track anything?

Assuming they tested without MCAS and as there has been no reports of more MAX lawn darts if they did find anything obviously it was recoverable.

More strawmen. Not surprised. Potential flaws or actual flaws? Flaws that cause people to die, or flaws that are just annoying?

Sounds like there might be some different monkeys working in the new jet.

BEG2IAH wrote:

Reading here how everyone is surprised after reading internal correspondence among Boeing employees, I wonder where do you guys work. When I was in consulting, we were all bitching like crazy at every lunch break. The language we used was ten times worse than this. Some people just love to be drama queens so their comments are even more intense. To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about these comments. I think it's a typical corporate BS life venting.

Comments I've heard at an airline I worked at wouldn't have you step your foot on a plane, but I knew it was just a bunch of smarta**es trying to be cool and "tough".

I agree, but most employees know, or should know, that anything you put into writing can come back and haunt you later.

The fact that these employees were still willing to render such thoughts in electronic communication is a sign to me that they were under great stress, and/or in at least one case were intoxicated.

People under manageable amounts of stress typically find ways to avoid using such methods for venting. People under high amounts of stress and/or deeply frustrated need outlets for relieving stress so badly that they throw caution to the wind and vent away.

Thunderbolt500 wrote:

sone beoing employees said this plane was designed by clowns sound pretty bad for Boeing.

The fact that one employee wrote he thought the plane was designed by monkeys is IMO just a little venting of frustrations.

The emails/texts have far worse things on them, some that pose some real ethics issues for Boeing.

The fact that one employee used his position as Chief Technical Pilot to shame an airline into backing down from requiring a sim session because he didn't want to set a precedent that could hamper sales is quite a bad look for Boeing.

We can certainly see why Forkner lawyered up when the DoJ reached out to him.

We can also see why the board gave DM the boot at the same time they admitted there was another shoe to drop with regards to emails/texts.

It'll be interesting to see how the regulators react just as Boeing is asking them to come to town and look at the software and have a few fights in the sim.

BEG2IAH wrote:

Reading here how everyone is surprised after reading internal correspondence among Boeing employees, I wonder where do you guys work. When I was in consulting, we were all bitching like crazy at every lunch break. The language we used was ten times worse than this. Some people just love to be drama queens so their comments are even more intense. To be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about these comments. I think it's a typical corporate BS life venting.

Comments I've heard at an airline I worked at wouldn't have you step your foot on a plane, but I knew it was just a bunch of smarta**es trying to be cool and "tough".

That just means they were being honest.

I've worked in private industry almost my whole life. I've heard a lot of venting and nasty comments about a lot of things.

But never about our own core product. Nothing even comes close to this.

You're just making excuses at this point.

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

Rustbelt wrote:

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

Very satisfying news, he deserves nothing in terms of severance, good move by Boeing.

Rustbelt wrote:

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

This is a good thing. I have no problem with CEOs and other high level executives being paid a ton if they do a good job. They should not be rewarded for doing a bad job.

He wasn't responsible directly for the issues but, as CEOs he must take responsibility. That's why CEOs are paid so much. They are responsible for things that they don't directly control.

JetBuddy wrote:

You're just making excuses at this point.

I have no interest to make any excuses, even less so for Boeing. I'm just not surprised that someone is bad-mouthing their company as I've seen it or heard it way too many times. Although I have to admit, as others have posted, why on earth would you put this in writing when you know that everything is discoverable. We were warned that even the messages on our internal messengers were archived and most of the bitching was verbal.

Boeing needs a very thorough clean up. I hope the only way is up from here. I walk by their HQ in Chicago every day and I don't remember I have seen one smiling person walking in or out of that building for a while.

Spirit AeroSystems will layoff some 2,800 workers:

http://investor.spiritaero.com/Cache/15 ... id=4831679

Spirit AeroSystems [NYSE: SPR] today issued a notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of layoffs affecting approximately 2,800 employees at its Wichita, Kansas facility. Spirit is taking this action because of the 737 MAX production suspension and ongoing uncertainty regarding the timing of when production will resume and the level of production when it does resume. This decision allows Spirit to begin aligning its cost structure to the production suspension and, after such suspension, what Spirit expects will be production levels lower than Spirit’s levels in 2019.

Francoflier wrote:

Adipocere wrote:

After reading these articles, I don’t understand why Boeing’s engineers are treated like anointed saints. They seems just as tainted as anyone else because they remained silent and chose to keep their jobs over going public with the rotten coverups and possibly saving 349 lives. I surely hope that engineers as well as management types get sacked over this debacle. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Boeing’s way of ensuring this doesn’t happen again is to change their email retention policy to 30 days or something to thwart future discoveries after a 777X or two go down.

So their choice would be to either quit or be sacked?
Telling people they should have taken the high road is always easy with the benefit of hindsight. I'd love to see them, or anyone, trying to explain to their wives and families that they quit a well-paid and secure job because they disagree with how the company makes decisions.
That system was born off a deficient safety culture which distilled from the top down. The pressure to push a faulty design through did not come from dozens upon dozens of engineers who suddenly decided they didn't want to do their jobs correctly, but rather from a much smaller group of people at the top who have no clue how an airplane flies and were desperate to deliver on rosy promises they had already made to customers.

What's saddening is that the latest reaction from Boeing after the recent leaks seems to indicate that they have no desire to change anything. They just want to find scapegoats within the rank and crack down on internal communication to prevent further damning leaks... This, of course, will not change anything until the people in charge of the executive management of the company either fall on their sword (visibly unlikely, give the deflection and denial) or are replaced.

Isn’t that the same choice facing the MBA’s and bean counters? If they didn’t squeeze more out of that quarterly they would be sacked (out of lucrative jobs) too. Why leave out spineless engineers who went along for the sake of keeping their jobs. They should be subject to the same criticisms and consequences as the management types are receiving.

In my opinion “Just following orders” does not work if what you do (or fail to do) kills people. It’s still negligence and moral bankruptcy.

morrisond wrote:

PixelFlight wrote:

morrisond wrote:

A. As I have repeatedly said - I am not blaming the pilots.
B. Even if there was MAX MCAS specific training - what makes anyone think ET would actually have provided this to their Pilots? After Lionair it's quite obvious they did not provide any training on ET's own Runaway trim Procedure that would have saved the plane even with MCAS V1.0.
As Planecane said this morning - whenever some new bit of info comes out - posters come on here and try to whitewash the crappy training at ET that was probably a major contributing factor to the loss of life in the second crash. Which is what happened again and why this got started again.
Someone at Boeing vented in an email so obviously that means the Airlines had no responsibility whatsoever. Yeh - right.

Did you understand that Boeing admit that the 737-8/9 MAX require a MCAS related specific training only since a few days ?

Yes - that's a good thing. More training is a good thing. But it will be on MCAS V2.0, and we don't know what that training is yet. It could be US style EET training.
I'm sure it will be something like if the plane does this - Run the Runaway trim NNC - which will still include disengage Autothrottle and control Airspeed Manually.
Runaway Trim NNC should have been part of normal NG and MAX training and recurrent training.

If . . .
* MCAS 2.0 is so much better than 1.0;
* and it should be, other wise the thing will never ever leave the ground with fare paying pax;
* and now Boeing realizes that even MCAS 2.0 require much better training, including sim sessions,

. . . how on earth can you continue your line that ET pilots should have been fully prepared to handle MCAS 1.0 runaway by just reading a memo???

Jedi mind boggling logic here . . .

PW100 wrote:

morrisond wrote:

PixelFlight wrote:

Did you understand that Boeing admit that the 737-8/9 MAX require a MCAS related specific training only since a few days ?

Yes - that's a good thing. More training is a good thing. But it will be on MCAS V2.0, and we don't know what that training is yet. It could be US style EET training.
I'm sure it will be something like if the plane does this - Run the Runaway trim NNC - which will still include disengage Autothrottle and control Airspeed Manually.
Runaway Trim NNC should have been part of normal NG and MAX training and recurrent training.

If . . .
* MCAS 2.0 is so much better than 1.0;
* and it should be, other wise the thing will never ever leave the ground with fare paying pax;
* and now Boeing realizes that even MCAS 2.0 require much better training, including sim sessions,

. . . how on earth can you continue your line that ET pilots should have been fully prepared to handle MCAS 1.0 runaway by just reading a memo???

Jedi mind boggling logic here . . .

I think they should just ground and destroy this plane

PW100 wrote:

If . . .
* MCAS 2.0 is so much better than 1.0;
* and it should be, other wise the thing will never ever leave the ground with fare paying pax;
* and now Boeing realizes that even MCAS 2.0 require much better training, including sim sessions,

. . . how on earth can you continue your line that ET pilots should have been fully prepared to handle MCAS 1.0 runaway by just reading a memo???

Jedi mind boggling logic here . . .

The correspondence we have just read indicate that simulators should be certified before MAX. How many are available, do we have any idea?

The memo's certainly put Forkner in a bad light and certainly seem to explain why he invoked his fifth amendment rights. He's going to have some interesting decisions on what to say now, unless this is in response to him co-operating fully about his time at Boeing.

Revelation wrote:

The ones the training people are providing is pretty troubling.

It is possible TRU SIM kept crashing and when SIM worked MCAS kept crashing the plane in the SIM.

And they have to achieve no-training rating, Tall order IMHO.

planecane wrote:

Rustbelt wrote:

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

This is a good thing. I have no problem with CEOs and other high level executives being paid a ton if they do a good job. They should not be rewarded for doing a bad job.

He wasn't responsible directly for the issues but, as CEOs he must take responsibility. That's why CEOs are paid so much. They are responsible for things that they don't directly control.

They should claw back performance bonuses paid to James McNerney as well: we now know his performance was horrible and he has more responsibility for the current issues than Muilenburg, yet for now he still gets to keep his illegitimate earnings.

morrisond wrote:

Baldr wrote:

Next time you are on final approach with a lot of turbulence and a severe crosswind just ask yourself - would I like a pilot with a ton of experience and the ability to fly in this situation or would a button pusher suffice?

I guess it's an internet thing, this need to denigrate those unable to defend themselves...

The captain had 8000 hours - presumably without too many issues as there are no reports of him being a marginal pilot. I guess that in that time, he had experienced a few crosswinds and, flying in Africa's infrastructure, was probably OK at basic flying skills too. Your insinuations are distasteful, to say the least.

MCAS is a function - good/bad/misnamed - we don't know but, to a certain extent, that's not important. What is important is that any function put on the aircraft needs to be implemented with an architecture that mitigates the effects of failures. What MCAS 1.0 demonstrated was that the system contained catastrophic failure modes that completely overwhelmed two sets of pilots from different regions. The "why" has yet to be determined and this is where experts earn their money. Very unlikely to have common training deficiencies. It is purely an aircraft problem.

MCAS 2.0 seems to still be some distance from where it needs to be in terms of robustness as half the pilots who tried it in the simulator followed incorrect procedures. I may be wrong but it seems that there is more to be done yet and I would bet money that this is why DM walked the plank, rather than a few sensational e-mails.

We will see. In the meantime, give the pilots a break. When they got up in the morning, kissed their partners goodbye, they couldn't know what a shitty hand they were going to be dealt.

WillyEckers wrote:

morrisond wrote:

Baldr wrote:

Next time you are on final approach with a lot of turbulence and a severe crosswind just ask yourself - would I like a pilot with a ton of experience and the ability to fly in this situation or would a button pusher suffice?

I guess it's an internet thing, this need to denigrate those unable to defend themselves...

The captain had 8000 hours - presumably without too many issues as there are no reports of him being a marginal pilot. I guess that in that time, he had experienced a few crosswinds and, flying in Africa's infrastructure, was probably OK at basic flying skills too. Your insinuations are distasteful, to say the least.

MCAS is a function - good/bad/misnamed - we don't know but, to a certain extent, that's not important. What is important is that any function put on the aircraft needs to be implemented with an architecture that mitigates the effects of failures. What MCAS 1.0 demonstrated was that the system contained catastrophic failure modes that completely overwhelmed two sets of pilots from different regions. The "why" has yet to be determined and this is where experts earn their money. Very unlikely to have common training deficiencies. It is purely an aircraft problem.

MCAS 2.0 seems to still be some distance from where it needs to be in terms of robustness as half the pilots who tried it in the simulator followed incorrect procedures. I may be wrong but it seems that there is more to be done yet and I would bet money that this is why DM walked the plank, rather than a few sensational e-mails.

We will see. In the meantime, give the pilots a break. When they got up in the morning, kissed their partners goodbye, they couldn't know what a shitty hand they were going to be dealt.

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

Rustbelt wrote:

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

Not that we have to worry about him applying for food stamps, but he still got screwed. Good PC PR move though.

planecane wrote:

This is a good thing. I have no problem with CEOs and other high level executives being paid a ton if they do a good job. They should not be rewarded for doing a bad job.

He wasn't responsible directly for the issues but, as CEOs he must take responsibility. That's why CEOs are paid so much. They are responsible for things that they don't directly control.

But if responsibility is the motive, I don't think it's a good thing to essentially use Muilenberg as a "retroactive" punishment to the previous people that were ultimately in charge for the problem. Two wrongs don't make a right. When the punishment isn't applied to the right party, it's symbolic at best and doesn't strongly coerce the intended changes in behavior. The moral of the story now is to simply distance yourself from the issue and pass it off to the next person--remove yourself from responsibility. It's encourages even more of a "fall-guy" structure.

morrisond wrote:

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

IIRC, ET crew threw the Cut Off Switches at/after the second MCAS cycle.
IIRC2, it was the 350 hr junior co-pilot who called for the Cut-Off switches.

They sure did find those Cut-Off switches pretty quickly for not having received the memo . . .

ACCS300 wrote:

Rustbelt wrote:

I guess DM is not getting his golden parachute.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/ex-boei ... rture.html

Very satisfying news, he deserves nothing in terms of severance, good move by Boeing.

Bloomberg's report ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... erance-pay ) says:

Still, he gets to keep awards and stock options that had already vested, along with his pension and deferred pay -- totaling as much as $80.7 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
...
The loss of some awards and denial of severance sends a strong signal that the board lost confidence in the once-heralded CEO.

And:

Public-company executives typically don’t receive severance benefits if they’re fired because they violated the firm’s policy or broke laws. Terminations and resignations prompted by poor job performance or loss of confidence among directors, however, can fall in a gray area.

In such instances, boards sometimes strike bespoke deals with departing executives, allowing them to collect some or all of their severance and keep some of their previously granted stock awards -- arrangements that can amount to tens of millions of dollars. In exchange, the executive typically must promise not to sue or publicly criticize the company.

But boards can also elect to withhold exit payments -- a move that some may interpret as a public rebuke.

It'll be interesting to see if DM will either sue or publicly criticize his former employer of 35 years.

morrisond wrote:

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

I've read your posts. If it were as simple as getting compliance with procedures, MAX would be flying. After all, these same pilots managed with other aircraft. It's more complicated than that and it needs the aircraft, not the pilots, to be corrected

morrisond wrote:

pasen wrote:

Another interesting piece from the Seattle Times:

One exchange related to Indonesian airline Lion Air is particularly chilling. ... one Boeing pilot wrote to another during an instant message exchange about how an airline in the Lion Air Group was asking for a flight simulator to train its pilots on the MAX. ... In an internal email that same day, Forkner, wrote “I’m putting out fires with [redacted name] who suddenly think they need simulator training to fly the MAX.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... f-737-max/

I guess, this puts the whole discussion about those “badly trained 3rd world pilots” into different light.

You don't need a MAX simulator to learn how to run a Runaway Trim NNC.

That wasn’t really my point.

As an engineer, when you design a solution, you have to deal with certain constraints. Some of them might be so significant that they lead to a suboptimal design. What we can see from the various conversations is, the “no additional training” requirement was a non-negotiable design constraint for the MAX engineers and I‘m sure, things like MCAS were significantly driven by that constraint. Without it, engineers might have found better solutions and more importantly better human interaction designs for pilots (i.e. clear warnings and error messages) that would have reduced the risk of pilots getting stressed or confused. Furthermore, there would also not have been any need to hide MCAS the way Boeing did. (“If we emphasize MCAS is a new function there may be a greater certification and training impact. Treat as addition to Speed Trim.”)

What the quoted conversation shows is, Lion Air was actually willing to invest into MAX-specific pilot training and even buy new simulators. I am not suggesting this would have prevented the accident. But at least they showed willingness to invest into training. As we know, it was Southwest (1st world airline) that was too stingy to invest into additional training and as a result partially drove that design constraint which in turn led to a suboptimal design.

Safety is not a binary thing. It’s all about continuous improvement. But the “no additional training” requirement clearly did not help making the MAX safer.

Revelation wrote:

It is a doozie if taken at face value, but it is not clear if the comment is a serious one (does the person writing it have personal knowledge of a brown envelope being passed and if so what was in it, or is he/she just being sarcastic?)

That's a fair point and I did think about that. From my own experience of working on a $6billion, time-pressured project, we would certainly say things via email on a one-to-one basis that we would never say 'officially'. However, jokes or sarcasm would always be marked as such with emojis because we were constantly reminded that we should never consider any email, text or document as being private, so the emojis were employed to CYA. I still try and be clear in written form, because it's so easy to misinterpret or take out of context.

Revelation wrote:

Bloomberg's report ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... erance-pay ) says:

Still, he gets to keep awards and stock options that had already vested, along with his pension and deferred pay -- totaling as much as $80.7 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
...
The loss of some awards and denial of severance sends a strong signal that the board lost confidence in the once-heralded CEO.

This is a great example of out of control executive compensation and feckless boards.

- Awards and stock are variable pay components that should be tied to the company’s performance. There needs to be claw back provisions even on issued awards and vested stock (RSU’s, PSU, options, etc). CEO’s make decisions today that put may put a company risk beyond the next 1-3 fiscal years’ performance. This is a great example.

- The only thing this guy should get is deferred base salary and pension.

I wonder what else he gets that rank and file Boeing employees would not received if laid off or fired, e.g., fully funded healthcare for life.

scbriml wrote:

Revelation wrote:

It is a doozie if taken at face value, but it is not clear if the comment is a serious one (does the person writing it have personal knowledge of a brown envelope being passed and if so what was in it, or is he/she just being sarcastic?)

That's a fair point and I did think about that. From my own experience of working on a $6billion, time-pressured project, we would certainly say things via email on a one-to-one basis that we would never say 'officially'. However, jokes or sarcasm would always be marked as such with emojis because we were constantly reminded that we should never consider any email, text or document as being private, so the emojis were employed to CYA. I still try and be clear in written form, because it's so easy to misinterpret or take out of context.

I am surprised at what people put in work email and texts. I never put anything in writing that I would not want discovered nor do I acknowledge anything inappropriate that was sent to me.

Verbally I only say things to people I can trust and only in 1:1 situations in case I have to deny it later.

I also distance myself as much as possible from sloppy people.

pasen wrote:

What the quoted conversation shows is, Lion Air was actually willing to invest into MAX-specific pilot training and even buy new simulators. I am not suggesting this would have prevented the accident. But at least they showed willingness to invest into training. As we know, it was Southwest (1st world airline) that was too stingy to invest into additional training and as a result partially drove that design constraint which in turn led to a suboptimal design.

Safety is not a binary thing. It’s all about continuous improvement. But the “no additional training” requirement clearly did not help making the MAX safer.

Before you put a halo around Lion Air consider this:

1) If you put two and two together, it appears Lion Air didn't request sim training for their subsidiary Malindo Air, but they did for their own operations. Strange to say the least, and it seems to be one source of the frustration from Boeing's side in their messages. I'm also not seeing where it indicates that Lion was wanting to buy sims. This appears to be related solely to initial training for their entry of the MAX into service.

2) The messages also strongly point in the direction that the request isn't a "we'll pay for it" situation. The messages convey that Lion wants Boeing to take a hit with this, away from the contractual agreement of no sim time required. So there's a financial angle for both sides, particularity for Lion Air's advantage. Considering Lion Air's inconsistent request for sim time, it doesn't paint them in a good light. If this was purely about safety, why only care about one airline? Instead it's more consistent with Lion Air NOT wanting to invest in something. Curiously all of Malindo's MAXes were transferred to Lion a few months after this exchange took place.

True, no additional training doesn't make something safer. But the opposite needs to be proven to say this is where Boeing was wrong, and so far we haven't seen that.

questions wrote:

I am surprised at what people put in work email and texts. I never put anything in writing that I would not want discovered nor do I acknowledge anything inappropriate that was sent to me.

Verbally I only say things to people I can trust and only in 1:1 situations in case I have to deny it later.

I also distance myself as much as possible from sloppy people.

Indeed.

Many of my emails to colleagues just say "FYI" in the body and contain stuff I'm forwarding because feel I need to bring to their attention.

If they need to know more about my concerns they can just ask me in person or via some channel where privacy is expected.

If not, at least I went on the record indicating that I think they should at least be aware of this piece of information.

Outlook lets you know it's storing your Skype for Business chats, it emails you a copy, so it should be no surprise they are being retained.

I'm sure I'm coming across like a grumpy old man but in reading the emails I kept saying to myself that these professional standards are pretty poor.

Bragging about pulling one over on the regulators and/or customers in written form wasn't at all necessary and was never going to end well.

Going with "I was able to convince X" was just as easy to type "I pulled a jedi mind trick on X" and would have saved everyone involved a lot of grief.

As I've suggested before, it probably was one of the many nails in Dennis's coffin.

Revelation wrote:

As I've suggested before, it probably was one of the many nails in Dennis's coffin.

I would complete this with a reminder that DM wasn’t in charge when the Max program was launched, however he was in charge during its certification. He become CEO mid-2015, certification flights started beginning 2016 and final certification come in March 2017.

A big part of the turmoil - the most critical one - happened under him.

TaromA380 wrote:

Revelation wrote:

As I've suggested before, it probably was one of the many nails in Dennis's coffin.

I would complete this with a reminder that DM wasn’t in charge when the Max program was launched, however he was in charge during its certification. He become CEO mid-2015, certification flights started beginning 2016 and final certification come in March 2017.

A big part of the turmoil - the most critical one - happened under him.

He owned the culture of safety and integrity in everything Boeing’s employees and its suppliers do. He failed.

morrisond wrote:

WillyEckers wrote:

morrisond wrote:

I guess it's an internet thing, this need to denigrate those unable to defend themselves...

The captain had 8000 hours - presumably without too many issues as there are no reports of him being a marginal pilot. I guess that in that time, he had experienced a few crosswinds and, flying in Africa's infrastructure, was probably OK at basic flying skills too. Your insinuations are distasteful, to say the least.

MCAS is a function - good/bad/misnamed - we don't know but, to a certain extent, that's not important. What is important is that any function put on the aircraft needs to be implemented with an architecture that mitigates the effects of failures. What MCAS 1.0 demonstrated was that the system contained catastrophic failure modes that completely overwhelmed two sets of pilots from different regions. The "why" has yet to be determined and this is where experts earn their money. Very unlikely to have common training deficiencies. It is purely an aircraft problem.

MCAS 2.0 seems to still be some distance from where it needs to be in terms of robustness as half the pilots who tried it in the simulator followed incorrect procedures. I may be wrong but it seems that there is more to be done yet and I would bet money that this is why DM walked the plank, rather than a few sensational e-mails.

We will see. In the meantime, give the pilots a break. When they got up in the morning, kissed their partners goodbye, they couldn't know what a shitty hand they were going to be dealt.

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

The problem was and is that the procedure Boeing wrote, does not work!

You are out of trim - you throw the switches - trim wheel does not work. That is apart from having to recognize what is happening.

You have a Christmas tree of different faults, most of them not real. Boeing never introduced EICAS to the 737, was to expensive and they got an exemption from the FAA.

One error light, that could give you a hint, AoA disagree is not working, even though it is standard and in the manuals. And yes, of course Boeing did neither inform the FAA nor it's customers.

And than you have Boeing that did all it could, to get airlines to not train their pilots, including persuading Lion Air from buying simulators and doing a training routine for their MAx pilots.

And you are keeping on your drive to point blame away from Boeing. Blaming the victims, when is crystal clear where the blame lies.

WillyEckers wrote:

morrisond wrote:

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

I've read your posts. If it were as simple as getting compliance with procedures, MAX would be flying. After all, these same pilots managed with other aircraft. It's more complicated than that and it needs the aircraft, not the pilots, to be corrected

When have I never said that the MAX doesn't need to be fixed? Maybe if you had been around for longer than 2 weeks you would know that.

I'm finding it incredible that some people can't believe that there are multiple issues identified by most crashes. The holes in the Swiss cheese need to line up.

mjoelnir wrote:

morrisond wrote:

WillyEckers wrote:

I guess it's an internet thing, this need to denigrate those unable to defend themselves...

The captain had 8000 hours - presumably without too many issues as there are no reports of him being a marginal pilot. I guess that in that time, he had experienced a few crosswinds and, flying in Africa's infrastructure, was probably OK at basic flying skills too. Your insinuations are distasteful, to say the least.

MCAS is a function - good/bad/misnamed - we don't know but, to a certain extent, that's not important. What is important is that any function put on the aircraft needs to be implemented with an architecture that mitigates the effects of failures. What MCAS 1.0 demonstrated was that the system contained catastrophic failure modes that completely overwhelmed two sets of pilots from different regions. The "why" has yet to be determined and this is where experts earn their money. Very unlikely to have common training deficiencies. It is purely an aircraft problem.

MCAS 2.0 seems to still be some distance from where it needs to be in terms of robustness as half the pilots who tried it in the simulator followed incorrect procedures. I may be wrong but it seems that there is more to be done yet and I would bet money that this is why DM walked the plank, rather than a few sensational e-mails.

We will see. In the meantime, give the pilots a break. When they got up in the morning, kissed their partners goodbye, they couldn't know what a shitty hand they were going to be dealt.

I am - if you had read what I actually wrote - I don't think they were ever informed by their airline of the right procedure(ET)

The problem was and is that the procedure Boeing wrote, does not work!

You are out of trim - you throw the switches - trim wheel does not work. That is apart from having to recognize what is happening.

You have a Christmas tree of different faults, most of them not real. Boeing never introduced EICAS to the 737, was to expensive and they got an exemption from the FAA.

One error light, that could give you a hint, AoA disagree is not working, even though it is standard and in the manuals. And yes, of course Boeing did neither inform the FAA nor it's customers.

And than you have Boeing that did all it could, to get airlines to not train their pilots, including persuading Lion Air from buying simulators and doing a training routine for their MAx pilots.

And you are keeping on your drive to point blame away from Boeing. Blaming the victims, when is crystal clear where the blame lies.

Except that you and most on here refuse to read the actual ET Runaway trim NNC that calls for auto throttle to be disengaged and speed manually controlled where the wheel will actuallly work fine.

PW100 wrote:

morrisond wrote:

PixelFlight wrote:

Did you understand that Boeing admit that the 737-8/9 MAX require a MCAS related specific training only since a few days ?

Yes - that's a good thing. More training is a good thing. But it will be on MCAS V2.0, and we don't know what that training is yet. It could be US style EET training.
I'm sure it will be something like if the plane does this - Run the Runaway trim NNC - which will still include disengage Autothrottle and control Airspeed Manually.
Runaway Trim NNC should have been part of normal NG and MAX training and recurrent training.

If . . .
* MCAS 2.0 is so much better than 1.0;
* and it should be, other wise the thing will never ever leave the ground with fare paying pax;
* and now Boeing realizes that even MCAS 2.0 require much better training, including sim sessions,

. . . how on earth can you continue your line that ET pilots should have been fully prepared to handle MCAS 1.0 runaway by just reading a memo???

Jedi mind boggling logic here . . .

We don't know what Boeing is recommending for training but based on the two crashes it could simply be how to run an NNC.

Revelation wrote:

questions wrote:

I am surprised at what people put in work email and texts. I never put anything in writing that I would not want discovered nor do I acknowledge anything inappropriate that was sent to me.

Verbally I only say things to people I can trust and only in 1:1 situations in case I have to deny it later.

I also distance myself as much as possible from sloppy people.

Indeed.

Many of my emails to colleagues just say "FYI" in the body and contain stuff I'm forwarding because feel I need to bring to their attention.

If they need to know more about my concerns they can just ask me in person or via some channel where privacy is expected.

If not, at least I went on the record indicating that I think they should at least be aware of this piece of information.

Outlook lets you know it's storing your Skype for Business chats, it emails you a copy, so it should be no surprise they are being retained.

I'm sure I'm coming across like a grumpy old man but in reading the emails I kept saying to myself that these professional standards are pretty poor.

Bragging about pulling one over on the regulators and/or customers in written form wasn't at all necessary and was never going to end well.

Going with "I was able to convince X" was just as easy to type "I pulled a jedi mind trick on X" and would have saved everyone involved a lot of grief.

As I've suggested before, it probably was one of the many nails in Dennis's coffin.

I have 17 years experience in two work places. In both all employees have access to a one page word document with do’s/dont’s when one communicates on company issued devices.

Rule of thumb: type only what you can read in front of a public congressional hearing or your mom without an ounce of embarrassment.

The new Boeing CEO needs to make some serious decisions and statements to try and show why anyone should ever trust Boeing ever again

The organisation must be at its lowest ebb ever both internally and in the eyes of the world

Huge huge culture change needed

And a huge amount of apologising needed to the world in general and their customers

As it stands you simply wouldn't want to do business with them

As it stands as a paying flight customer only I personally feel like they don't deserve my business even on the Boeing planes I trust!

I never thought it would get to that stage

Let me say I recognise the nasty and insincere messages are rife in businesses throughout the world. I have to deal with these types of characters in my own work on a daily basis

But sorry - this attitude is simply not acceptable in this industry where we put our lives in their hands. Which until the last couple of years I considered to be an industry beyond reproach

I find everything I've read about Boeing since these Max disasters to be quite sickening tbh

I really don't envy the job that the new CEO has to try and turn this round. It's not going to be easy. This organisation looks completely broken to me.

It could take a decade to win trust and respect back

Boeing have seriously damaged the reputation of the entire aviation industry. I never imagined this possible of a company with Boeing's standing in the world. I would have trusted them implicitly until recently

They have let the US as whole down very badly IMO. One of your most respected organisations come to this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/busi ... sages.html

An article about lack of trust of Boeing in New York Times

More dismal reading as is the norm now.

Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants union, said the messages revealed a “sick” culture at Boeing, noting that “the trust level was already in the toilet.”

I also note from the New York Times article that the new Boeing CEO will be paid 7 million USD bonus IF he can successfully get Max ungrounded!!

I also note the new CEO doesn't start the job until Monday. No doubt deliberate to not be in place when this week's horrendous stories were released

He can at least start Monday afresh and hopefully start slowly but surely cleaning shop and start putting right all of these wrongs

Boeing seems to be facing some fines!? The headline is of course a slight click bait

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51058929

Boeing faces fine for 737 Max plane 'designed by clowns'
US regulators are seeking to fine Boeing $5.4m (£4.14m) for "knowingly" installing faulty parts on 737 Max planes. The move comes after the release of internal messages that raised more questions about the jet's safety.

The fine announced by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday is not connected to the software system that investigators have implicated in those crashes. It concerns "slat tracks" that are located on the wings. The FAA said the company submitted the jets for FAA approval despite determining that the wing parts had failed a strength test. It also accused Boeing of failing to oversee its suppliers properly.

The planemaker has the right to contest the penalty, which follows a $3.9m fine the FAA proposed against the US aerospace giant for similar reasons last month.

And Dominic Gates sums it up pretty good in his latest article:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... d-on-cost/

While some of the more memorable quotes may be dismissed as bravado — nothing more than hard-charging guys who “blew off steam” after work, as the lawyer for the lead pilot put it — other, more sober internal emails reveal the pressures the pilots were under from the MAX program leadership. They suggest a troubling Boeing culture that prioritized costs over safety.

Plus Boeing did reverse grandfathering, or how would we call it with regards to RCAS?

Another safety upgrade, called Roll Command Alerting Systems (RCAS), was introduced for the MAX to alert the pilots to an excessive bank angle that the autopilot might not cope with. However, again to minimize differences, Boeing allowed RCAS to be retrofitted to the previous 737 NG model as well, and insisted that airlines taking the MAX do the retrofit on at least one earlier model 737 so that then they could say there’s no difference between the two models.

And in relation to certification of RCAS, the emails show that Boeing employees discussed how to minimize this new crew alert to the FAA so as not to raise concerns that pilots might need simulator training on what to do if the alert light comes on. One message notes how the alert will most likely come on if an engine goes out, and suggests that the recovery from that needs to be sold to the FAA “as a very intuitive basic pilot skill.”

On the max subject, ua parked 14 of theirs at gyr, have they removed any? Because when I drive by I only see 7.

Interested wrote:

I also note from the New York Times article that the new Boeing CEO will be paid 7 million USD bonus IF he can successfully get Max ungrounded!!

Pretty cheap price if he can do it. But he might have to explain RCAS to the FAA first.

oschkosch wrote:

Boeing seems to be facing some fines!? The headline is of course a slight click bait

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51058929

Boeing faces fine for 737 Max plane 'designed by clowns'
US regulators are seeking to fine Boeing $5.4m (£4.14m) for "knowingly" installing faulty parts on 737 Max planes./quote]

$5.4 million? Wow pathetic, take it out of Muilenburg's payoff he won't notice it.

oschkosch wrote:

And Dominic Gates sums it up pretty good in his latest article:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... d-on-cost/

You know I was thinking when reading it. You know what's dumb about this writing from Gates and the rest of the media? I can read the messages myself. I don't need him and his personal bias to tell me (to often wrongly or misleadingly) what they say and mean. That's the good thing about the information age when its available. The bad thing is that it exposes just how easily people can be misled if they don't or can't investigate themselves. But otherwise, yeah, good article that thankfully I can judge against the source material. It wasn't his worst work - that's a high bar to clear - but it will still greatly mislead people.

MSPNWA wrote:

oschkosch wrote:

And Dominic Gates sums it up pretty good in his latest article:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/b ... d-on-cost/

You know I was thinking when reading it. You know what's dumb about this writing from Gates and the rest of the media? I can read the messages myself. I don't need him and his personal bias to tell me (to often wrongly or misleadingly) what they say and mean. That's the good thing about the information age when its available. The bad thing is that it exposes just how easily people can be misled if they don't or can't investigate themselves. But otherwise, yeah, good article that thankfully I can judge against the source material. It wasn't his worst work - that's a high bar to clear - but it will still greatly mislead people.

Maybe you can point out where you believe he is misleading people then? That would definitely help!

morrisond wrote:

United787 wrote:

phollingsworth wrote:

However, I do wonder what you believe are the inherent flaws of the 737MAX that are not present on all other modern airliners?

This is an oversimplification but: those engines on those wings on that fuselage. There are hundreds of other posts that go into more detail but that is the inherent flaw. Boeing's 1st mistake, of many, was not doing a clean sheet design. Their 2nd mistake was not doing a clean sheet design...

SteelChair wrote:

I reassert what I said several months ago. Time to stop the MAX program take a $40B charge, fire up the NG program for 4 years, and design an all new airplane. Fire most of the top management, scrap all the MAX frames and totally remake the company. Employees will need to take pay and benefit cuts. Everyone will need to pull together to make it work.

This, exactly!

Yes - but just remember - as REV pointed out it would have been the same clowns designing the clean sheet.

At least it would have been a lot easier to hide any potential Aerodynamic flaws with FBW though.

You do not need to „hide“ a aerodynamical behavior of a FBW Plane.

FBW compensates a behavior. Its Part of the plan. It is Designed for it. It does ist very well.

Pilots dont.
They are Not used to it

Interested wrote:

I also note from the New York Times article that the new Boeing CEO will be paid 7 million USD bonus IF he can successfully get Max ungrounded!!

tells me that boeing itself is not really shure if the 737MAX will ever fly again or not

morrisond wrote:

I'm finding it incredible that some people can't believe that there are multiple issues identified by most crashes. The holes in the Swiss cheese need to line up.

The Swiss cheese model is used when there are a number of unrelated conditions that come together to create the conditions for an accident - hypothetical example: a tired pilot takes-off at night with an inoperative ADF during an electrical storm... has an accident. The investigators might find that the combination of "tiredness", "night", "inop ADF" and "storm" gave the necessary conditions and that the absence of any one of those would have avoided the accident.

There is not the same degree of unrelatedness here.

morrisond wrote:

We don't know what Boeing is recommending for training but based on the two crashes it could simply be how to run an NNC.

The clever people will be asking why the NNC were not run. Almost certainly because line pilots were thrown, without warning or preparation, into the test pilot role to validate procedures that had never been tested before. One thing for sure, the new MAX training is required because of the complexity of the product.