I am a retired aerospace engineer who has worked for Lockheed, Boeing and Douglas, on missile guidance, navigation and control.
I worked for Boeing on the SaturnV Moon rocket (We were Systems manager). Even 50+ years ago Boeing knew enough to provide triple-redundancy, with voting logic, in its flight control systems. I cannot FATHOM why they failed to provide this feature in the 737 MAX 8.
I have been reading the Wall Street Journal’s features on this problem, where they reported that Boeing effectively froze their test pilots out of the design loop. The software people must have imposed an arrogant approach to the design. In my experience, some of the software people dismisse the input of people working with their product, resulting in embedded bugs.
I would also fault Boeing’s decision to move corporate HQ away from Seattle to Chicago, while retaining engineering and manufacturing in Seattle, Charleston and elsewhere. This very move isolated company management from their own engineers, who could have access to report problems, face-to-face…