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Boeing CEO accepts blame for two plane crashes
The chairman of Boeing acknowledged Thursday for the first time that a new maneuvering system was responsible for two plane crashes that killed almost 350 people, and he apologized to the families and friends of the victims. (www.usatoday.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Personally I think the FAA should take some responsibility for the incidents as well. They issued an airworthiness certificate hastily...... I don't entirely blame Boeing.
I agree with you 100% Roy. The ancillary safety agencies should have caught this before the FAA, NTSB, ALPA and operators of these jets were getting strange reports from pilots and carriers but everyone chose to rely on Boeing's good word and disregarded the complaints coming in. What Boeing did to these passengers and pilots is nothing short of manslaughter. Boeing finally manned-up for these preventable accidents.
what strange reports are you talking about?
Before the crashes the MCAS was not operating as advertised. Apparently many pilots raised red flags about this hinky system. That's what a meant about strange reports.
Boeing and the FAA have become codependent on this.
Certainly by divesting their approval and oversight authority to the manufacturer, they are responsible for the faults that result.
In fact, Boeing made no such claim of responsibility.
By now most people interested in this matter have probably seen or read Dennis Muilenburg's statement, but if not, they can watch and also read it on Flight Aware or here: https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.page
Watching it for the first time I thought, "Incredible...Dennis Muilenburg, the Chairman, President, and CEO of Boeing, is falling on his own sword!!" My heart was heavy, and I felt sorry for Muilenburg and for Boeing. I was watching what seemed to be their long overdue, sincere, and heartfelt "act of contrition" wrapped around their acceptance of responsibility for the tragedies, and closing with their pledge to do better. Muilenburg was very convincing, and I completely bought into his performance.
But then it dawned on me that I really had been watching a performance, and that's all it was...Boeing's carefully crafted "command performance" at the behest of Boeing's lawyers, optimally timed and intended to take some of the pressure off Boeing, and especially to lighten public sentiment against them in the wake of the release of the compelling Ethiopian Airlines crash report.
Carefully re-reading the transcript of Muilenburg's words appearing below the video window -- in particular the statement, "it’s apparent that in both flights the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, known as MCAS, activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information," -- it struck me that the CEO in fact was NOT admitting that Boeing or its MCAS were to blame; instead he was only stating that Boeing's MCAS had responded appropriately to erroneous AOA data. Figuratively, he had drawn a box around his sacred MCAS while implying the MCAS functioned as expected and that the problem existed not with MCAS but elsewhere, somewhere outside that box he had drawn around it. Without saying so, he implied that the underlying design and function of MCAS and all the reasons for its existence were valid and sound.
(Aside: I'd be interested to learn what happens if/when the MAX fully stalls at high AOA...in the few simulators that exist for flight training, are full stalls allowed to happen with MCAS disabled, or is MCAS always active? In the real world, would a full stall with a disabled MCAS be an unrecoverable event? Is that why it exists? Have these questions been addressed anywhere? If so, where? If not, why not?)
Muilenburg goes on to say, "erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high workload environment. It is our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it and we know how to do it." Distilling those three statements, he says only this: that going forward (and I paraphrase) Boeing "owns the responsibility to eliminate the risk of erroneous activation" of their guiltless MCAS.
During upcoming investigations and lawsuits we can expect to see extremely careful distinctions made by legislators, lawyers, and witnesses -- distinctions between "erroneous activation" (think: AOA vane faults) and the MCAS itself (the unprecedented component that Boeing felt it necessary to invent and then quietly add to the B-737NG airframe.) Boeing does NOT want their MCAS to be viewed or determined to be a causative factor, because that would lead investigators to ask why the flight characteristics of the MAX were so different from the B-737NG that Boeing was compelled to invent and add MCAS to the aircraft design. Then investigators would ask, "What are all the other differences between the MAX and its predecessors?" Then the $64 question: "With all these differences from its predecessors, doesn't the MAX require a separate type-rating?" and Boeing absolutely wants to avoid getting dragged down that rabbit hole.
So that slippery bugger Muilenburg was NOT "manning up" as he and the lawyers intended for the world to believe, nor was he accepting the blame for the crashes and for the deaths of 346 people. On the contrary, in his prepared, carefully-worded statement, he and Boeing remained as defiant as they were last November following the Lion Air crash, when he protested that MAX airplanes were airworthy and attempted to deflect the blame onto the "inexperienced crew."
To summarizing the contents of Muilenburg's statement, he:
-1) offered sympathies to the families,
-2) indicted the AOA for having provided faulty data to the MCAS (implying "garbage in, garbage out"),
-3) reminded us that "it" (the faulty data) was but one link in a "chain of events" that caused the accidents (implying
that there are several and perhaps many other contributing factors),
-4) spoke about software changes to MCAS to prevent further such occurrences,
-5) added mostly corporate cheer leading and boilerplate statements, and
-6) concluded with another brief offer of sympathy.
That's it...he offered Boeing's sympathy to victims' families, and indicted "faulty data" from the AOA...and no more. He made no acceptance of culpability nor did he acknowledge any design deficiency whatsoever. With such theater, Boeing continues to deftly deflect blame for the crashes while implying it could be laid elsewhere.
I confess that at first I was taken in by his skillful performance. Clearly, I was not alone. And that's what Muilenberg and Boeing were trying to achieve.
By now most people interested in this matter have probably seen or read Dennis Muilenburg's statement, but if not, they can watch and also read it on Flight Aware or here: https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.page
Watching it for the first time I thought, "Incredible...Dennis Muilenburg, the Chairman, President, and CEO of Boeing, is falling on his own sword!!" My heart was heavy, and I felt sorry for Muilenburg and for Boeing. I was watching what seemed to be their long overdue, sincere, and heartfelt "act of contrition" wrapped around their acceptance of responsibility for the tragedies, and closing with their pledge to do better. Muilenburg was very convincing, and I completely bought into his performance.
But then it dawned on me that I really had been watching a performance, and that's all it was...Boeing's carefully crafted "command performance" at the behest of Boeing's lawyers, optimally timed and intended to take some of the pressure off Boeing, and especially to lighten public sentiment against them in the wake of the release of the compelling Ethiopian Airlines crash report.
Carefully re-reading the transcript of Muilenburg's words appearing below the video window -- in particular the statement, "it’s apparent that in both flights the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, known as MCAS, activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information," -- it struck me that the CEO in fact was NOT admitting that Boeing or its MCAS were to blame; instead he was only stating that Boeing's MCAS had responded appropriately to erroneous AOA data. Figuratively, he had drawn a box around his sacred MCAS while implying the MCAS functioned as expected and that the problem existed not with MCAS but elsewhere, somewhere outside that box he had drawn around it. Without saying so, he implied that the underlying design and function of MCAS and all the reasons for its existence were valid and sound.
(Aside: I'd be interested to learn what happens if/when the MAX fully stalls at high AOA...in the few simulators that exist for flight training, are full stalls allowed to happen with MCAS disabled, or is MCAS always active? In the real world, would a full stall with a disabled MCAS be an unrecoverable event? Is that why it exists? Have these questions been addressed anywhere? If so, where? If not, why not?)
Muilenburg goes on to say, "erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high workload environment. It is our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it and we know how to do it." Distilling those three statements, he says only this: that going forward (and I paraphrase) Boeing "owns the responsibility to eliminate the risk of erroneous activation" of their guiltless MCAS.
During upcoming investigations and lawsuits we can expect to see extremely careful distinctions made by legislators, lawyers, and witnesses -- distinctions between "erroneous activation" (think: AOA vane faults) and the MCAS itself (the unprecedented component that Boeing felt it necessary to invent and then quietly add to the B-737NG airframe.) Boeing does NOT want their MCAS to be viewed or determined to be a causative factor, because that would lead investigators to ask why the flight characteristics of the MAX were so different from the B-737NG that Boeing was compelled to invent and add MCAS to the aircraft design. Then investigators would ask, "What are all the other differences between the MAX and its predecessors?" Then the $64 question: "With all these differences from its predecessors, doesn't the MAX require a separate type-rating?" and Boeing absolutely wants to avoid getting dragged down that rabbit hole.
So that slippery bugger Muilenburg was NOT "manning up" as he and the lawyers intended for the world to believe, nor was he accepting the blame for the crashes and for the deaths of 346 people. On the contrary, in his prepared, carefully-worded statement, he and Boeing remained as defiant as they were last November following the Lion Air crash, when he protested that MAX airplanes were airworthy and attempted to deflect the blame onto the "inexperienced crew."
To summarizing the contents of Muilenburg's statement, he:
-1) offered sympathies to the families,
-2) indicted the AOA for having provided faulty data to the MCAS (implying "garbage in, garbage out"),
-3) reminded us that "it" (the faulty data) was but one link in a "chain of events" that caused the accidents (implying
that there are several and perhaps many other contributing factors),
-4) spoke about software changes to MCAS to prevent further such occurrences,
-5) added mostly corporate cheer leading and boilerplate statements, and
-6) concluded with another brief offer of sympathy.
That's it...he offered Boeing's sympathy to victims' families, and indicted "faulty data" from the AOA...and no more. He made no acceptance of culpability nor did he acknowledge any design deficiency whatsoever. With such theater, Boeing continues to deftly deflect blame for the crashes while implying it could be laid elsewhere.
I confess that at first I was taken in by his skillful performance. Clearly, I was not alone. And that's what Muilenberg and Boeing were trying to achieve.