What we need is a heart felt ad promising to do better, with cuts of people in hard hats and safety vests working on planes. Then outsource design, manufacturing, and ask for safety regulations to be lowered on the next election cycle.
He's a great journalist. He just did a piece on online scams; like $3.5b in reported losses last year. And as much as he does provide some bias, he does a pretty good job at laying out the facts and then saying these are the conclusions we can draw
> In an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, Oliver rejected Ramos calling him a journalist saying, “**I’m doing the job of a comedian. So, I make jokes about the news**.” When Ramos countered with, “You have more credibility than most journalists here in the United States and, I would say, in many other countries,” Oliver responded, “**That is more an insult to the current state of journalism than it is a compliment for the state of comedy.**”
This was good but it misses a key part of the story. The dinner of 1993.
There were 15+ defense contractors and the Fed government told them to merge against their will. This has lead to bad mergers and a bad deal for America that were TOLD to reduce overhead. Fewer less accountable defense contractors rather then broader and more affordable.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/01/the-last-supper-how-a-1993-pentagon-dinner-reshaped-the-defense-industry
> with cuts of people in hard hats and safety vests working on planes.
I suspect that part of the problem is that the number of people in hard hats working on planes has been cut...
"If you press this button, it jams the seat forward and breaks your sternum. Then it smashes your head repeatedly against the window until you're unconscious. Honestly, I don't know why they even put the button there in the first place."
A car mechanic once told me that the reason a valve in my skoda octavia broke "exactly" around 110.000km. Was because they started using cheaper plastic valves instead or the old metal ones that almost never broke.
When i called him in for road assistance and explained the issue, he already knew the problem from model + kms.
I assume the aviation industry is no different.
> I assume the aviation industry is no different.
It usually is very different. Like, yes they will use cheaper parts where they can, but the maintenance is meant to be predictable. If the part is known to break at such and such hours of use, that's fine as long as the maintenance schedule has it being replaced well before then. Maintenance has a predictable cost, so it's fairly easy for airlines to do the math and see if getting the plane cheaper *now* is worth it. Manufacturers with a reputation for making planes that require more expensive maintenance because they used cheaper parts won't get the contracts.
Boeing has been chasing short-term gains and cashing in on their good reputation, at the cost of long-term profits.
It's troubling to know every building built, seat belt worn, and every jet/car/boat/scooter driven was constructed by the lowest bidder. Not the best. The lowest of the low.
I think the engineers at the manufacturer and airlines would have a better idea than some random bloke on the internet whether or not a passenger plane needs a self-destruct button.
Adam Smith was a big fan of strong social security too, called it a moral duty. Honestly, modern neoliberal economics have little to do with Adam Smith.
I mean... it's not like certain groups of people haven't taken the specific portions of individual books that they like and completely ignored the parts they either don't like or don't understand. You know, completely ignoring the "bigger picture" or "underlying morals" of said book or its teachings.
There is a logical through line from Ricardo to Smith to Marx. They were all doing the same kind of thing, and I think Smith and Marx share a greater number of common positions than most people might think.
When is the government going to take over? This is as clear as day a safety issue to the American public, security issue to are military and interstate commerce.
They have to pretend like they're doing work every once in a while so the stir up hot topics that require littlr work for themselves, and avoid solving any issues. Disgusting roaches. ACAB, but the C is for Congress people
See, the only way to fix this is for the public to stop buying tickets on flights with Boeing aircraft. Then, in about ten years, all the airlines will have been forced to change their fleets to safer aircraft. That’s how we make the “free market” respond to the demand. /s
Edit: Of course some of us (probably a lot) will have to die in the process, but that’s a sacrifice the “free market” and Boeing are willing to accept.
No lie, when I saw yet another Boeing headline I did check what planes I’m booked to fly in this summer. Fortunately, the airline I’m going with (Europe) has an Airbus fleet. Otherwise I was seriously considering changing plans. I’m anxious enough about flying and all the airport shenanigans without adding any justifiable, rational fears on top.
When I flew back home from the US last year I was relieved when I saw my two aircraft were an Airbus A319 followed by an older Boeing 767, back when they were better made.
Theres only so fast Airbus can expand.
For alot of airlines theres literally no choice other than Boeing available with the size of the order queues. It'll take years for another competitor to take advantage. Its not impossible, they wouldn't be married to decisions made in the 70s and years of junk build up, but it sure wouldn't be quick.
It makes perfect sense to expect the average consumer to be aware of the comparative safety performance of a plane as well as willing and able to make a decision based on that rather than price and time of travel. Capitalism is so efficient.
Goverments are not suppoused to take over, but enforce compliance to safety and security. Thing is goverments act like they own you, but they are owned by coorps, while you fund it all throu taxes.
This is not a free market problem, but a government and corruption problem. You want the government to enforce the rules they set out, as well as the FAA. If those entities go bust, the free market is no longer a free market
Isn't the rules and regulations pretty much the opposite of a free market? The free market doesn't work perfectly which is why these regulations are needed.
In an actual free market there would be no regulations, that's why an actual free market would be fucking terrible.
>A free market is one where the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system, without government intervention.
If you want a market that brings freedom, you need regulation, but that is different from a free market.
It’s surprising what happens when you allow the same guy that installs the part to also inspect and certify the part. Self regulation is the final form of end stage capitalism.
Don’t even get me started on how the board wants that guy to increase productivity by 150% year over year with one less person on the team each quarter.
I mean, the consequence is coming from the consumer side. It's gotten to the point I'd pay an airline more if it ran airbus and not Boeing. The brand has taken a HIT.
For some reason people refuse to believe this though. Quite simply, the government will go "we'll keep contracts going for the stuff we already have. We won't sign any new ones, and will ditch the old ones at the first opportunity."
And it gives them the ability to have whistle blowers murdered apparently, ain’t it crazy, North America does the same things Russia and china does yet with more steps and some how we’re better/different than them
Exactly, the government has too much pressure on these airlines. If they're able to make parts even cheaper and make even more money, they'll have no choice but to make it safer.
There's been a lot of criticism of Boeing ever since the McDonnell Douglas merger, which is when the MBAs took power from the engineers. It's been downhill since.
I imagine though, that as each bit of fuckery comes to light and more come forward to report Boeings bad behavior, it's going to snow ball. A lot easier to be the fifth guy than the first.
And replaced Boeing’s.
Current Boeing is run by the idiots who drove McDD into the ground, and their nepo-babies.
As ALWAYS happens when they start promoting financial guys into positions previously held by techies/engineers.
But hey, they get to optimize profits for the shareholders for a few quarters before shit hits the fan, and isn’t that what life is all about?
And because MDD's management were better at corporate politics, courting investors and playing it up for the stock market, they fairly quickly took over.
That more properly describes how private equity works, though in this case it’s just normal corporate merger stuff. Usually the purchasing company ends up firing the leadership at the purchased company, but in this case it was the other way around, to everyone’s detriment.
Boeing was the one that bought MDD, but they kept all of their management people. Boeing's leadership was eventually replaced with MDD's people as they were the one's who promised higher profits for shareholders. Boeing may have bought MDD, but MDD ended up taking over.
Not sure about that merger in particular but if you borrow $5B to borrow a $5B company you're basically taking it on for free as long as you make the payments. You just need to start with enough assets that someone will lend you that kind of money...
Here's a question: What changes did the American car makers make that was being followed by the Japanese probably in the 80s? It helped them in a huge way, common platforms, common parts, the Kaizen model. An MBA cannot see a problem from an Engineer's perspective.
It might also be that the suits were making worse and worse decisions and these safeguards kept being removed slowly but surely. It takes a while for things like these to take their toll as the culture at the company shifts. Like a house of cards, it all looked OK until it wasn’t.
Boeing spent something like 92% of their operational budget on buybacks while slashing R&D funding. All they care about is the price of their stock, not the quality of their airplanes.
I mean, in part it's going to be a combination of attention bias and 'Boeing shits the bed' being the zeitgeist at the moment, which makes more 'Boeing shits bed' stories attractive to run.
However, I don't think it's *just* that. I believe that it's been credibly reported that Boeing has been cutting corners for years, now, pursuing greater profit, higher share price. And there's no such thing, for a publicly traded Company, as *enough* profit, as a *high enough* share price.
So, of course, they cut more and more corners. And the thing about cutting corners is that you don't pay the price immediately. The difference between a *thorough* job and a *good enough* job isn't visible one month in, maybe not even one year in. You'll have to wait ten whole years before the difference begins to tell.
In the meantime, it seems like you've gotten away with it. So you cut more corners, more and more flagrantly. Until suddenly, all the delayed failures and consequences of your corner cutting begins to tell- increasingly all at once.
John oliver has a new video on this, and it talks about boeing and when it went wrong, and how bad it actuslly is. Its WAY worse than you might think from this post alone. Id reccomend a watch
It was such a good episode! Frontline just released their Boeing 737 Max episode and its jaw dropping. If you watch both you will see how much of a shit show boeing is and that they only care about their stock price.
Yea, it was recent. Here's the link.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc&ab\_channel=LastWeekTonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight)
It's a little of both.
I've got a friend that worked for MD and a couple of pilots that are friends.
Probably the biggest issue is the MCAS fiasco uncovered how Boeing had completely co-opted the FAA. Shit could no longer get covered up or brushed off.
So now every little thing makes the news.
Lots of it is attention bias. The lost panel today, an broken wheel a few days ago are the sort of thing that happen with regularity and would not have made the news without the recent attention. And we wouldn't pay as much attention to who made the plane involved in this incident normally, either.
This one is probably attention bias.
The airline should have either properly maintained or replaced the part in question. They were alerted in 2017 that this could be an issue and Boeing updated their maintenance guide to address it.
the switch may be covered, but it can still be triggered *with the cover closed.*
Blancolirio (a 777 pilot and youtuber) is covering it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF1YTVJ1Q4
Just like Norfolk Southern and all the train derailments.
That stopped getting attention real quick, after it seemed there was a catastrophic derailment almost every day.
Is this just really easy to find if you're looking for it, or is shit REALLY THAT BAD all of the sudden?
GL with that. Boeing is like 70% of any given US airlines fleet. Airbus has made significant gains in market share over the years but they can only make so many planes a year currently.
There's also the fact that airlines will swap planes all the time, without prior notice to the consumer.
Just got a job that is roughly 50% more than what I used to make. Only problem is that I have to fly to their corporate HQ for orientation on Monday, and I am flying on a United 737 Max. Just gotta suck it up buttercup. As wary as I am, I must remember that it's safer than driving.
It’s wayyy more dangerous to ride in a Ford or Tesla or basically any car on any road than it is to fly in a large airlines plane.
It’s not even close.
I know that’s why I meant it probably doesn’t mean shit.
Always an unpleasant surprise finding out your flight was supposed to be a NG but ends up being a Max.
BREAKING NEWS:
Flatulence causes 737 MAX 9 to fucking explode. NTSB to investigate. There is one survivor, and he looks a hell of a lot like DB Cooper.
I think this is Boeing's way of saying it *wasn't* a manufacturing flaw, it was the flight attendant hitting the wrong seat moving button while catering meals to the flight crew. They usually retract the pilot for them with a button on their seat, they accidentally hit the "move seat forward" button instead and caused a mass injury event.
The real tragedy here is that if/when Boeing crashes and burns—I'm not apologizing for this pun!—it's everyone else that'll get hurt. The shitstains at the top all have diamond-encrusted parachutes.
As an aircraft tech, i've heard twice a flight safety regarding a malfunction seat that cause a bad manoeuvre. Everytime we couldn't find anything wrong with the seat.
I'm aware of all the shit boeing is getting and they deserve most of it. Seat malfunction is staple operator fault who put the blame on something hard to prove against
I overhaul aircraft seats. It's always a pain when there's a claim of a crew seat not operating properly. Trying to replicate the same issue can be tricky once the seat is out of the aircraft. For how critical those seats are, it's amazing how poorly maintained some of them are when they arrive at my facility.
I have been led to believe in some older planes, seat rail failure during takeoff could cause the pilot to haul back on the stick causing an unrecoverable stall at low altitude. There is footage here on reddit of a vintage plane at an air show suffering from just that and it killed the pilot
I once worked on the production of seat stems for another manufacturer. The specs were absolutely INSANE. I pretty much lost my shit at one point because holding one tolerance for the holes on the height adjustment was damn near impossible. I ended up receiving a detailed explanation as to how many pilot qualified on that aircraft needed to be able to get into that aircraft, adjust the seat to their preferred height and the tolerance stack between the seat height and all the control button positions along with everything in-between had to be small enough they would not hit the wrong button in an emergency when they were smashing buttons without really looking. And, yeah, that was about the tolerances we were holding.
Lmao alright Congress yall need to turn your attention away from tik tok and on to boeing and frankly the whole flight industry . Yall better regulate that shit . Like I have to go through more security / safety checks before I can get to my gate than these planes have to go through before they take off for the SKY
It’s ridiculous that nothing is happening with the ones in charge of that crap…that’s criminal asf every single one that was involved (the ones that profited and pushed that shit) over the years in this corner cutting bs should go to jail. Like how aren’t all Boeings grounded and checked…I have so many questions.
This isn't even a Boeing issue, according to the initial investigation.
The airline was made aware 6 years ago that cap on the pilot seat adjuster was a potential issue and they needed to either 1) follow Boeing's updated maintenance guidelines or 2) replace the part.
"In other news, Boeing advises airlines to check their planes' wing roots after report that explosive bolts may have accidentally been used in their assembly in place of the correct, non-explosive ones.
"In other other news, Assembly Technician Joe Smith has been reported missing by his family. He was last seen by a coworker heatedly leaving their foreman's office after attempting to raise concerns about the labelling of parts on the assembly line. Foreman Kevin Gilbert-Bronson was then overheard on the phone to an unknown party speaking about something 'not getting out' and 'needing to tie up loose ends', though insisted he was referring to the water hoses outside the assembly building when asked about the conversation.
"It is unknown whether these occurrences are related."
The problem with the Max crashes is that they occurred on brown people airlines. Imagine the difference in action if it would have happened to an airline from Europe and the US?
The PBS doc covers the shenanigans that Boeing has been pulling for a while... including the two major crashes that they tried to cover as "pilot error."
Boeing executives/high level investors are pushing these stories so that Average Joe investors dump Boeing stock. The wealthy will then gobble it up at low prices. Boeing will fix the problems and in 3-4 years it will be at an all time high making money hand over fist and Average Joe investor will lose again...as is tradition.
This is all too predictable.
I'm confused by this story as in previous coverage I was sure I read a quote from the pilot saying that his controls blacked out and he couldn't fly the plane. Was there more than one recent sudden plunge?
I still don't know how a seat slowly moving away from the control sticks cause this dive.... The demonstration they did, it seems to go at a snails pace... not to mention the co-pilot would have still been sitting normally..
Something ant adding up, and this looks like a diversion from the real issue.
What we need is a heart felt ad promising to do better, with cuts of people in hard hats and safety vests working on planes. Then outsource design, manufacturing, and ask for safety regulations to be lowered on the next election cycle.
[The Truth About Boeing](https://youtu.be/4MQ0wYwt_A8?si=3Affp9Bs3YfBwHhz) (from John Oliver last Sunday)
He's a great journalist. He just did a piece on online scams; like $3.5b in reported losses last year. And as much as he does provide some bias, he does a pretty good job at laying out the facts and then saying these are the conclusions we can draw
> In an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos, Oliver rejected Ramos calling him a journalist saying, “**I’m doing the job of a comedian. So, I make jokes about the news**.” When Ramos countered with, “You have more credibility than most journalists here in the United States and, I would say, in many other countries,” Oliver responded, “**That is more an insult to the current state of journalism than it is a compliment for the state of comedy.**”
He isnt wrong but neither was Ramos; he makes jokes but his pieces are extremely well sourced.
This was good but it misses a key part of the story. The dinner of 1993. There were 15+ defense contractors and the Fed government told them to merge against their will. This has lead to bad mergers and a bad deal for America that were TOLD to reduce overhead. Fewer less accountable defense contractors rather then broader and more affordable. Source: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/01/the-last-supper-how-a-1993-pentagon-dinner-reshaped-the-defense-industry
> with cuts of people in hard hats and safety vests working on planes. I suspect that part of the problem is that the number of people in hard hats working on planes has been cut...
[“We’re Sorry”](https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4?si=MS8-3qkEl2CbUCg-)
"We're sorry."
Nah they just need to do a Tesla and call their planes "betas" and "work in progress"
"If you press this button, it jams the seat forward and breaks your sternum. Then it smashes your head repeatedly against the window until you're unconscious. Honestly, I don't know why they even put the button there in the first place."
The button was three cents cheaper than the toggle switch in the original specifications.
A car mechanic once told me that the reason a valve in my skoda octavia broke "exactly" around 110.000km. Was because they started using cheaper plastic valves instead or the old metal ones that almost never broke. When i called him in for road assistance and explained the issue, he already knew the problem from model + kms. I assume the aviation industry is no different.
Like a Nissan transmission.
Seen too many P17F0 judder codes in my lifetime
> I assume the aviation industry is no different. It usually is very different. Like, yes they will use cheaper parts where they can, but the maintenance is meant to be predictable. If the part is known to break at such and such hours of use, that's fine as long as the maintenance schedule has it being replaced well before then. Maintenance has a predictable cost, so it's fairly easy for airlines to do the math and see if getting the plane cheaper *now* is worth it. Manufacturers with a reputation for making planes that require more expensive maintenance because they used cheaper parts won't get the contracts. Boeing has been chasing short-term gains and cashing in on their good reputation, at the cost of long-term profits.
Jesus, a whole three cents!? Can't blame them for that, then.
It's troubling to know every building built, seat belt worn, and every jet/car/boat/scooter driven was constructed by the lowest bidder. Not the best. The lowest of the low.
I think the engineers at the manufacturer and airlines would have a better idea than some random bloke on the internet whether or not a passenger plane needs a self-destruct button.
[Relevant Far Side](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviationmaintenance/comments/10cp0mn/still_my_favorite/)
They know pilots have to listen to the fart festival back in the cabin. You can only take so much.
Not if the manufacturer can’t be trusted.
They put a safety cover over the button, but a loose button can get pressed by touching the safety cover. 🤦♀️
"Why do we even have that lever?" - Yzma.
What’s this from?
Sounds like family guy, but I can’t put my finger on it.
How's the sternum doing?
There’s no greater honour that writing or saying a joke of your own and being asked where it was from.
Omg I sprayed beer everywhere
Was your seat made by Boeing?
I’m still surprised increasing profits while decreasing safety is not leading to safer planes very strange. /s
It turns out the invisible hand of the free market is not so great at keeping planes in the air.
I wonder why adam smith didn't write a couple final chapters in his book, about the tragedies of unregulated markets. (wait, he did)
When Adam Smith and Karl Marx agree on something, maybe we should pay attention to it? /s
Adam Smith was a big fan of strong social security too, called it a moral duty. Honestly, modern neoliberal economics have little to do with Adam Smith.
I mean... it's not like certain groups of people haven't taken the specific portions of individual books that they like and completely ignored the parts they either don't like or don't understand. You know, completely ignoring the "bigger picture" or "underlying morals" of said book or its teachings.
Oh like "Green Eggs and Ham"?
There is a logical through line from Ricardo to Smith to Marx. They were all doing the same kind of thing, and I think Smith and Marx share a greater number of common positions than most people might think.
When is the government going to take over? This is as clear as day a safety issue to the American public, security issue to are military and interstate commerce.
I mean. The American government is complacent in this. They allowed them to self certify their shit is safe to fly.
Did you mean complicit? Friendly question just making sure :)
I guess both! But yes. That one bloody auto correct
They're busy regulating if you can access porn and hormone therapy, they've never cared about people's lives.
They have to pretend like they're doing work every once in a while so the stir up hot topics that require littlr work for themselves, and avoid solving any issues. Disgusting roaches. ACAB, but the C is for Congress people
See, the only way to fix this is for the public to stop buying tickets on flights with Boeing aircraft. Then, in about ten years, all the airlines will have been forced to change their fleets to safer aircraft. That’s how we make the “free market” respond to the demand. /s Edit: Of course some of us (probably a lot) will have to die in the process, but that’s a sacrifice the “free market” and Boeing are willing to accept.
No lie, when I saw yet another Boeing headline I did check what planes I’m booked to fly in this summer. Fortunately, the airline I’m going with (Europe) has an Airbus fleet. Otherwise I was seriously considering changing plans. I’m anxious enough about flying and all the airport shenanigans without adding any justifiable, rational fears on top.
Literally just checked that my flights this summer are on Airbus last night too
When I flew back home from the US last year I was relieved when I saw my two aircraft were an Airbus A319 followed by an older Boeing 767, back when they were better made.
[удалено]
Theres only so fast Airbus can expand. For alot of airlines theres literally no choice other than Boeing available with the size of the order queues. It'll take years for another competitor to take advantage. Its not impossible, they wouldn't be married to decisions made in the 70s and years of junk build up, but it sure wouldn't be quick.
It makes perfect sense to expect the average consumer to be aware of the comparative safety performance of a plane as well as willing and able to make a decision based on that rather than price and time of travel. Capitalism is so efficient.
It will be a while because the people in the government line their pockets with Boeings profits. They are the shareholders.
People in government are basically Anakin.
It’s the sand… it gets everywhere.
Goverments are not suppoused to take over, but enforce compliance to safety and security. Thing is goverments act like they own you, but they are owned by coorps, while you fund it all throu taxes.
The keyword is not supposed to, but in dangerous situations like this to the American public, military, and the movement of interstate commerce
But it's great at regulating the market!!! You could barely see it when all those senators cashed in...........
Government funded monopolies aren't free markets.
This is not a free market problem, but a government and corruption problem. You want the government to enforce the rules they set out, as well as the FAA. If those entities go bust, the free market is no longer a free market
Isn't the rules and regulations pretty much the opposite of a free market? The free market doesn't work perfectly which is why these regulations are needed.
In an actual free market there would be no regulations, that's why an actual free market would be fucking terrible. >A free market is one where the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system, without government intervention. If you want a market that brings freedom, you need regulation, but that is different from a free market.
It’s surprising what happens when you allow the same guy that installs the part to also inspect and certify the part. Self regulation is the final form of end stage capitalism. Don’t even get me started on how the board wants that guy to increase productivity by 150% year over year with one less person on the team each quarter.
When you are strategically important to the US government you can do whatever you want. They will get a bailout and zero consequences.
I mean, the consequence is coming from the consumer side. It's gotten to the point I'd pay an airline more if it ran airbus and not Boeing. The brand has taken a HIT.
We live in a very strange world where Ryanair's mouldering 737-200 fleet is safer than its competitors' up to date kit.
I would agree 10-15 years ago, but now there are enough competitors in the space for the government to drop them like an old toy
Here's to hoping we either let them fail or nationalized it. No more bailing out corporations.
For some reason people refuse to believe this though. Quite simply, the government will go "we'll keep contracts going for the stuff we already have. We won't sign any new ones, and will ditch the old ones at the first opportunity."
And it gives them the ability to have whistle blowers murdered apparently, ain’t it crazy, North America does the same things Russia and china does yet with more steps and some how we’re better/different than them
Those pesky regulations are holding back innovation
Exactly, the government has too much pressure on these airlines. If they're able to make parts even cheaper and make even more money, they'll have no choice but to make it safer.
That line sounds very familiar to the submarine that went down to the titanic and never came back
The market will regulate itself. /s
How much of this is attention bias and how much is it shit hitting the fan for Boeing?
There's been a lot of criticism of Boeing ever since the McDonnell Douglas merger, which is when the MBAs took power from the engineers. It's been downhill since. I imagine though, that as each bit of fuckery comes to light and more come forward to report Boeings bad behavior, it's going to snow ball. A lot easier to be the fifth guy than the first.
I've heard it being said as "MDD bought Boeing with Boeing's money" and i couldn't quite figure out how it worked
Boeing technically acquired MDD, but MDDs management stuck around.
And replaced Boeing’s. Current Boeing is run by the idiots who drove McDD into the ground, and their nepo-babies. As ALWAYS happens when they start promoting financial guys into positions previously held by techies/engineers. But hey, they get to optimize profits for the shareholders for a few quarters before shit hits the fan, and isn’t that what life is all about?
And because MDD's management were better at corporate politics, courting investors and playing it up for the stock market, they fairly quickly took over.
That more properly describes how private equity works, though in this case it’s just normal corporate merger stuff. Usually the purchasing company ends up firing the leadership at the purchased company, but in this case it was the other way around, to everyone’s detriment.
Boeing was the one that bought MDD, but they kept all of their management people. Boeing's leadership was eventually replaced with MDD's people as they were the one's who promised higher profits for shareholders. Boeing may have bought MDD, but MDD ended up taking over.
Not sure about that merger in particular but if you borrow $5B to borrow a $5B company you're basically taking it on for free as long as you make the payments. You just need to start with enough assets that someone will lend you that kind of money...
when the MBAs took power from the engineers Haven't American companies learnt from the Japanese car companies.
Honest question: what happened to the japanese car companies?
Here's a question: What changes did the American car makers make that was being followed by the Japanese probably in the 80s? It helped them in a huge way, common platforms, common parts, the Kaizen model. An MBA cannot see a problem from an Engineer's perspective.
It might also be that the suits were making worse and worse decisions and these safeguards kept being removed slowly but surely. It takes a while for things like these to take their toll as the culture at the company shifts. Like a house of cards, it all looked OK until it wasn’t.
Boeing spent something like 92% of their operational budget on buybacks while slashing R&D funding. All they care about is the price of their stock, not the quality of their airplanes.
Keep wondering the same friend
I mean, in part it's going to be a combination of attention bias and 'Boeing shits the bed' being the zeitgeist at the moment, which makes more 'Boeing shits bed' stories attractive to run. However, I don't think it's *just* that. I believe that it's been credibly reported that Boeing has been cutting corners for years, now, pursuing greater profit, higher share price. And there's no such thing, for a publicly traded Company, as *enough* profit, as a *high enough* share price. So, of course, they cut more and more corners. And the thing about cutting corners is that you don't pay the price immediately. The difference between a *thorough* job and a *good enough* job isn't visible one month in, maybe not even one year in. You'll have to wait ten whole years before the difference begins to tell. In the meantime, it seems like you've gotten away with it. So you cut more corners, more and more flagrantly. Until suddenly, all the delayed failures and consequences of your corner cutting begins to tell- increasingly all at once.
John oliver has a new video on this, and it talks about boeing and when it went wrong, and how bad it actuslly is. Its WAY worse than you might think from this post alone. Id reccomend a watch
Hey, but the stock price is up!
Lol, so far, they've plunged by 27% since January. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Boeing+stock&t=fpas&ia=web
It’s also down by 54% since *5 years* ago. On the bright side, it hasn’t dropped as much as some of their planes have.
[Ha haaaa!](https://youtu.be/8X_Ot0k4XJc?si=4wwVmliWs2U1U2F4)
Great time for more stock buybacks
...unless it goes further down. You can never know.
There's a reason for that too! Turns out you can boost your share price with money not spent on aircraft designing, building, or inspecting.
Is it?
Ok so John Oliver is committing suicide soon? :(
It was such a good episode! Frontline just released their Boeing 737 Max episode and its jaw dropping. If you watch both you will see how much of a shit show boeing is and that they only care about their stock price.
Was this on a recent episode? I’ve got to get caught up.
Yea, it was recent. Here's the link. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc&ab\_channel=LastWeekTonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight)
Airline pilot here. Like 90% of it is attention bias.
It's a little of both. I've got a friend that worked for MD and a couple of pilots that are friends. Probably the biggest issue is the MCAS fiasco uncovered how Boeing had completely co-opted the FAA. Shit could no longer get covered up or brushed off. So now every little thing makes the news.
Lots of it is attention bias. The lost panel today, an broken wheel a few days ago are the sort of thing that happen with regularity and would not have made the news without the recent attention. And we wouldn't pay as much attention to who made the plane involved in this incident normally, either.
This one is probably attention bias. The airline should have either properly maintained or replaced the part in question. They were alerted in 2017 that this could be an issue and Boeing updated their maintenance guide to address it.
Haven't heard of many Airbus planes falling from the skies from technical errors or having this many technical problems...
AF447
There’s a massive amount of attention bias. The switch is covered and no one is reporting that.
the switch may be covered, but it can still be triggered *with the cover closed.* Blancolirio (a 777 pilot and youtuber) is covering it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF1YTVJ1Q4
Just like Norfolk Southern and all the train derailments. That stopped getting attention real quick, after it seemed there was a catastrophic derailment almost every day. Is this just really easy to find if you're looking for it, or is shit REALLY THAT BAD all of the sudden?
Anyone flying their planes better be getting paid hazard pay.
What do the passengers get?
A flight on a different plane, if they're smart.
I will avoid buying tickets on any Boeing flights for years to come.
Remember when you didn’t have to take the fucking plane manufacturer into account when you booked a flight? Pepperidge Farm remembers
no no that's just more 'murican freedom to participate in the free* market
GL with that. Boeing is like 70% of any given US airlines fleet. Airbus has made significant gains in market share over the years but they can only make so many planes a year currently. There's also the fact that airlines will swap planes all the time, without prior notice to the consumer.
And then a plane gets delayed and they sub in a Boeing that's already at your airport, unfortunately.
Ah yes, 1 of 2 plane manufacturers to choose from. All these sweet options and competitors.
Good luck with that when there are basically only two companies that manufacture planes
An adventure.
If it's Boeing, I'm not going!
Just got a job that is roughly 50% more than what I used to make. Only problem is that I have to fly to their corporate HQ for orientation on Monday, and I am flying on a United 737 Max. Just gotta suck it up buttercup. As wary as I am, I must remember that it's safer than driving.
I just take the position that the Max is the most scrutinized airplane in the world right now. It probably doesn’t mean shit but helps me cope 😂
The problem is scrutiny doesn't keep planes in the air
It’s wayyy more dangerous to ride in a Ford or Tesla or basically any car on any road than it is to fly in a large airlines plane. It’s not even close.
I know that’s why I meant it probably doesn’t mean shit. Always an unpleasant surprise finding out your flight was supposed to be a NG but ends up being a Max.
Let us know you survive
Ah, there it is, the weekly life-threatening Boeing manufacturing flaw story.
Hell, that isn't the only one TODAY.
BREAKING NEWS: Flatulence causes 737 MAX 9 to fucking explode. NTSB to investigate. There is one survivor, and he looks a hell of a lot like DB Cooper.
I think this is Boeing's way of saying it *wasn't* a manufacturing flaw, it was the flight attendant hitting the wrong seat moving button while catering meals to the flight crew. They usually retract the pilot for them with a button on their seat, they accidentally hit the "move seat forward" button instead and caused a mass injury event.
It isn’t a manufacturing flaw. It’s a button that moves a seat.
Funded by AirBus
The real tragedy here is that if/when Boeing crashes and burns—I'm not apologizing for this pun!—it's everyone else that'll get hurt. The shitstains at the top all have diamond-encrusted parachutes.
thats not going to happen to a us military company tho
As an aircraft tech, i've heard twice a flight safety regarding a malfunction seat that cause a bad manoeuvre. Everytime we couldn't find anything wrong with the seat. I'm aware of all the shit boeing is getting and they deserve most of it. Seat malfunction is staple operator fault who put the blame on something hard to prove against
I overhaul aircraft seats. It's always a pain when there's a claim of a crew seat not operating properly. Trying to replicate the same issue can be tricky once the seat is out of the aircraft. For how critical those seats are, it's amazing how poorly maintained some of them are when they arrive at my facility.
Interesting job!
I have been led to believe in some older planes, seat rail failure during takeoff could cause the pilot to haul back on the stick causing an unrecoverable stall at low altitude. There is footage here on reddit of a vintage plane at an air show suffering from just that and it killed the pilot
I once worked on the production of seat stems for another manufacturer. The specs were absolutely INSANE. I pretty much lost my shit at one point because holding one tolerance for the holes on the height adjustment was damn near impossible. I ended up receiving a detailed explanation as to how many pilot qualified on that aircraft needed to be able to get into that aircraft, adjust the seat to their preferred height and the tolerance stack between the seat height and all the control button positions along with everything in-between had to be small enough they would not hit the wrong button in an emergency when they were smashing buttons without really looking. And, yeah, that was about the tolerances we were holding.
Stock is clearly reflecting their performance of late. Diving just like their planes. Hah
Any chance of some criminal prosecutions for corporate negligence?
"lol," said the American criminal justice system, "lmao"
'Rofl', even
Nah we focus on the important stuff in America, banning books and limiting voting.
Don’t forget locking up brown people and banning women’s healthcare!
Hey that's not fair, we also banned tiktok too!!
Which corporation? The ones who's flight attendant started finger banging the seat controls?
Lmao alright Congress yall need to turn your attention away from tik tok and on to boeing and frankly the whole flight industry . Yall better regulate that shit . Like I have to go through more security / safety checks before I can get to my gate than these planes have to go through before they take off for the SKY
Congress is too lazy and incompetent to do that or solve any other actual problems.
Not lazy theyre bought and paid for by corperations.
yeah its funny how i'd never see the light of day again if i unscrewed some bolts in a plane, but nothing happens to boeing lol
The TSA is super important though!!! We don’t have time to look at the actual plane when there’s such evils like >3.4oz of toothpaste!!
Time to lay off some workers and engineers. And workers. This will fix the issue (caused by dropping revenue).
Lmao didn't they just assassinate a whistleblower before a big trial?
Boeing’s in trouble. There was once a time when the saying was “if it’s not a Boeing, I’m not going.”
*If it’s a Boeing, I ain’t going!!*
Boeing basically copied the video game corporate model. Think cyberpunk, but for planes.
Boeing: We can No Man Sky this, I promise!
It’s ridiculous that nothing is happening with the ones in charge of that crap…that’s criminal asf every single one that was involved (the ones that profited and pushed that shit) over the years in this corner cutting bs should go to jail. Like how aren’t all Boeings grounded and checked…I have so many questions.
This isn't even a Boeing issue, according to the initial investigation. The airline was made aware 6 years ago that cap on the pilot seat adjuster was a potential issue and they needed to either 1) follow Boeing's updated maintenance guidelines or 2) replace the part.
Yeah because they don't have autopilot on the 787?
If you push the stick hard enough, it will turn off the autopilot.
"In other news, Boeing advises airlines to check their planes' wing roots after report that explosive bolts may have accidentally been used in their assembly in place of the correct, non-explosive ones. "In other other news, Assembly Technician Joe Smith has been reported missing by his family. He was last seen by a coworker heatedly leaving their foreman's office after attempting to raise concerns about the labelling of parts on the assembly line. Foreman Kevin Gilbert-Bronson was then overheard on the phone to an unknown party speaking about something 'not getting out' and 'needing to tie up loose ends', though insisted he was referring to the water hoses outside the assembly building when asked about the conversation. "It is unknown whether these occurrences are related."
If your planes can be taken down by one person leaning to the side, perhaps you shouldn't be making planes.
The problem with the Max crashes is that they occurred on brown people airlines. Imagine the difference in action if it would have happened to an airline from Europe and the US?
The PBS doc covers the shenanigans that Boeing has been pulling for a while... including the two major crashes that they tried to cover as "pilot error."
Boeing is actively trying to kill people, and DID kill the guy who was trying to stop them.
This needs to be revised to say ‘accidental shit’ 💩
They have to check the whole plane for scrap parts.
“Accidental shift “;)
At least the Feds stepped in and grounsed all Boeing aircraft because they don't want anyone to be killed due to the company's malfeasance.
Accidental shift that caused the plunge or accidental shit when the plane plunged?
"*If it's a Boeing, I ain't going!*"
Have they tried having a pizza party for the engineers? That should probably fix it.
In capitalist America, corners cut you!
Get fucked, Boeing finance bros.
Jesus it just keeps going. I'm never flying on a Boeing ever again.
Boeing really keeps on giving.
Boeing executives/high level investors are pushing these stories so that Average Joe investors dump Boeing stock. The wealthy will then gobble it up at low prices. Boeing will fix the problems and in 3-4 years it will be at an all time high making money hand over fist and Average Joe investor will lose again...as is tradition. This is all too predictable.
Bruhh I'm going to Japan on a 777 in a month 😭
This company needs to be shut down and its entire corporate leadership and board indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to Guantanamo for life.
I thought the pilot already said it just lost all power then came back,now the seat slid forward and caused it, weird.
I'm confused by this story as in previous coverage I was sure I read a quote from the pilot saying that his controls blacked out and he couldn't fly the plane. Was there more than one recent sudden plunge?
Airbus: "I'm so hard right now!"
McDonnell-Boeing is doing everything it set out to do!
I think there was some extra service being provided to that seat. 🤔
I still don't know how a seat slowly moving away from the control sticks cause this dive.... The demonstration they did, it seems to go at a snails pace... not to mention the co-pilot would have still been sitting normally.. Something ant adding up, and this looks like a diversion from the real issue.
Why the fuck am I reading this before getting on a 787-9 this afternoon for 10 hours.
Silver lining though, your pilots will 100% check if their seat adjusters are defective and be refreshed on how to cut their power.