I’d expect ‘criminal’ to be deliberately saying something was safe, or lying in response to question.
Is either the case here?
Why do you assume ‘big’ is bad?
Depends on values taught, led, and enforced in the organization. Search http://www.bbandt.com for ‘culture’ to see a sound set of values.
(BBandT avoided some of the government’s mortgage fiasco because it took the view that what is not good for customers is not good for the bank. BBandT is ‘big’, grew substantially with that philosophy. BBandT did not need bailout money.)
Read up on the actual law, which does vary by fiefdom.
The general thrust of it is that government will stay prosecuting IF:
- accused pays reparations and/or a fine
- behaves through a probationary period (of a few years I suppose)
Common criteria used by prosecutors include self-disclosure (big points for that).
Canadians voting today might have been influenced by political fight involving SNC-Lavalin company, which did not self-disclose, and in any case was not eligible because the Canadian version of the law excludes entities accused of bribing foreign officials. Allegations were Prime Minister pressured Attorney General to give the company deferred prosecution, his game was preserving jobs in or near his riding - a fallacy as others would pick up worthwhile assets and employ good people after bankruptcy.
I think individuals can be treated with the process, Idaho or thereabouts gave deferred prosecution to the founder of a charity building schools for girls in poor countries. He was very sloppy with the organization’s funds, and some ended up in his pocket.
There’s a fundamental fallacy in the statement that MCAS would only activate in [rare] circumstances - it is there for the rare circumstance that a pilot might pitch up too quickly when approaching stall, because rate of change of control force decreased near stall, thus stall the airplane.
MCAS was Boeing’s approach to meeting the regulation addressing that, whereas earlier the 767 team designed a triplex system to take control but did not implement it because a few vortex generators sufficed. In contrast, if I understand correctly, as MAX was refined and tested the need became greater so MCAS was made more aggressive - that changed its safety. (The KC-46A has a similar system to help pilots as CofG shifts substantially and quickly with fuel offload, but it was kept mild.)
Greg,
Totally agree, and good comment.
However, Boeing should have put this in the manual and should have been discussed, but certainly NOT criminal.
Too many folks are NOT taking responsibility for their actions.
(PS off topic: Make the sign in easier, and take you back to where you left off… irritating).
Retired 73 pilot.
Larryo,
I agree. Boeing should have put a description of MCAS in the Max FOM. However, it would have made no difference in the outcome of either accident. Congrats on retirement! Cheers, Greg
I have seen frequent references to “regulation required the control feel to be the same”, but my understanding is that is a simplification. From what I know of the MAX and MCAS, MCAS became “required” so as not to require any simulator differences training between the NG and the MAX. “Control feel” in this case only means “nearly-identical control feel to the NG”. My understanding is also that Boeing wanted all references to MCAS removed because they wanted to downplay the importance of the system to be something so minor that it didn’t require any regulatory oversight. If MCAS never existed on the MAX, my understanding is that would be perfectly fine EXCEPT that it would require simulator differences training.
Boeing management set themselves up for failure with how the MAX was handled. Both in the decisions they made to pressure employees to ensure no simulator training was required, and in their failure to define a culture where any one employee could say “stop, we need to evaluate this further”. IMO, the safety culture at Boeing has degraded in the same way it degraded at NASA over the Challenger explosion. When management decisions take precedent over engineering decisions, no one wins in the end.
Ask Boeing, the FAA, Forkner, or the people on the Deferred Prosecution Agreement. They already know. Plea agreements are made all the time well in the advance of a story/news/press release. All of the potential fall out scenarios has been discussed. This particular story will just fade away. And I am confident Mr. Forkner will continue to fly.
You are confusing things.
There is an FAA regulation on change in control forces, ‘feel’, approaching stall. That is well known, the 767 was Boeing’s first airliner to face that regulation, a triplex push system was designed but when flight testing showed only a small effect vortex generators were installed on the wings instead.
The regulation does not require feel to be the same as another model, only that it does not become lighter approaching stall.
MCAS does not change ‘feel’ - it takes control via stabilizer trim to avoid a pilot stalling the airplane if s/he pulled too hard in the face of diminishing resistance of controls.
Boeing wanted to avoid training, so minimized talking about the CAS system. But that scheme failed to recognize that the design of MCAS had morphed to be so aggressive that stabilizer could be moved so far that pilots could not overcome its force with elevator deflection.
Bjorn Fehrm, Satcom Guru, and others have explained that ad nauseum.
The original B707 had a control column nudger for acceptance in Britain, and the KC-46A has an MCAS system, neither is aggressive.
Firstly, the pilots know about runaway stabilizer trim - there is training and/or written procedures.
They did not now about MCAS, when the stabilizer was doing unexpected things some pilots mis-diagnosed the situation.
On the flight prior to the fatal Lion Air one a pilot in the jump seat diagnosed what was happening though did not now why, so advised the flying pilot to turn off the stabilizer trim. Sadly, on the next flight poor crew coordination in switching roles left the F/O confused and not taking the correct approach.
The pilots of the fatal Ethiopian flight knew of MCAS but somehow got confused and/or simply ran out of time (the airplane was moving fast and close to the ground, out of that hot and high airport).
Mmm, might have helped the Lion Air crew. Ethiopian crew new from advisories/publicity but somehow did not handle it before time ran out (moving fast at low altitude out of the hot high airport).
Uh, cost of differences training was considered a big deal.
As for misleading FAA, at one point the accused told a colleague that he inadvertently told the FAA the wrong thing. Question is whether or not he then told them so.
Too much typical Internet flapping in this thread - by people who do not understand law, do not understand the regulation that fomented MCAS, do not understand what MCAS is.
OH! You mean the same FAA that is telling us it’ll take four years to for a LODA resolution for a problem THEY created? At every level of our Government these days, we are seeing incompetence along with a failure to punish same with anything but a pay raise while working from home in their underwear while still wielding brute power over aviation.
Well, Keith, I just counted (I had to borrow some fingers) … 14 of 53 comments here are by YOU! That’s over 25%. So if anyone is burning up the ether in this thread, I’d say it was you. Since you’re an expert on “law, Regulation and MCAS,” why don’t you do another long comment and school all of us Neanderthals on all things we don’t ‘understand’. Thanks in advance.
OH BTW … have you flown the MAX airplane or any 737 ? What is the basis for your expertise?
Probably time for Russ to shut down the comments here ?
Thanks for doing the math, Larry. And for asking the right questions.
Keith Sketchley, I am interested in your opinion.
There’s more here than just MCAS. This guy deserves a little jail time. There are plenty of other people in the organization that should join him there too.
Pressed by the Justice Department, Boeing turned over a series of emails and shocking instant message exchanges between Forkner and his deputy, Patrik Gustavsson, in which Forkner bragged about how he had “jedi mind tricked” airlines into choosing the minimum pilot training option — and so avoided the need for extensive training of pilots on full flight simulators that would make the MAX a more expensive and less competitive airplane.
To pull that off, Forkner persuaded the FAA in March 2016 to omit any description of MCAS from the pilot manuals, arguing that it would activate only in extreme circumstances — as he said in an email, “WAY outside” normal flying conditions.
Forkner actively worked to the same end with regulators around the world, whom he disparaged in private messages as “fools” and “idiots.”
Tragically, Forkner even dissuaded Lion Air officials who wanted to train their pilots on MAX simulators that this was “a difficult and unnecessary training burden for your airline.”
He mocked the Indonesian airline representatives for their “stupidity” in asking for such training and boasted that his efforts to dissuade them had saved Boeing “a sick amount of $$$$.”
… The FAA “engineers” who signed off on the thing are just as complicit as any Boeing employees …
More so. The Buck stops with the FFA and, as usual when disaster strikes, turns out that elevator-trailing-edge-wick FAA guys are overseeing leading-edge Boeing engineers and test pilots. In the end, though, Lion’s and Ethiopian’s “pilots” forgot: “First fly the aeroplane.” Assuming - big stretch, this one - any of them knew how.
Well said.