This disaster is rooted in “a bad business decision” by Boeing, said Jeff Wise in Slate.com.
To stay competitive with a new, fuel-efficient Airbus jet, Boeing faced a choice: Design a next-generation 737 from scratch or revise the legacy version—a vastly cheaper option. Boeing chose the latter.
But to accommodate better engines, it had “to move the point where the plane attaches to the wing,” resulting in a dangerous tendency for the Max 8 to pitch up and possibly stall.
Boeing compensated by added software that pitches the nose down if it senses upward drift.
Clearly, the “engineers used automation to paper over the aircraft’s flaws.”
These crashes could be the result.
The FAA’s slowness to respond to this crisis is not surprising, said Heather Timmons in Qz.com.
The Trump administration is hostile to regulation, and acting officials occupy the FAA’s top three posts, including administrator Dan Elwell, a former American Airlines executive and airline industry lobbyist.
Trump just proposed massive cuts to FAA staff. The agency simply “isn’t under optimal conditions to deal with a big issue like two Boeing crashes.”
It’s also worth noting that “Boeing’s influence in Washington is mammoth,” said Melanie Zanona and Brianna Gurciullo in Politico.com.
The company has 153,000 workers, and employs 24 in-house lobbyists and nearly 20 lobbying firms.
It spent $15 million–plus on D.C. lobbying last year—“more than any other U.S. company except for Google and AT&T.”
Oh, and Trump’s new secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan, spent 31 years at Boeing and has been reported to lavish praise on the company’s products at meetings and criticize those of its competitors.
Does that explain why the U.S. was the last advanced nation in the world to ground the Max 8 and 9?
To stay competitive with a new, fuel-efficient Airbus jet, Boeing faced a choice: Design a next-generation 737 from scratch or revise the legacy version—a vastly cheaper option. Boeing chose the latter.
But to accommodate better engines, it had “to move the point where the plane attaches to the wing,” resulting in a dangerous tendency for the Max 8 to pitch up and possibly stall.
Boeing compensated by added software that pitches the nose down if it senses upward drift.
Clearly, the “engineers used automation to paper over the aircraft’s flaws.”
These crashes could be the result.
The FAA’s slowness to respond to this crisis is not surprising, said Heather Timmons in Qz.com.
The Trump administration is hostile to regulation, and acting officials occupy the FAA’s top three posts, including administrator Dan Elwell, a former American Airlines executive and airline industry lobbyist.
Trump just proposed massive cuts to FAA staff. The agency simply “isn’t under optimal conditions to deal with a big issue like two Boeing crashes.”
It’s also worth noting that “Boeing’s influence in Washington is mammoth,” said Melanie Zanona and Brianna Gurciullo in Politico.com.
The company has 153,000 workers, and employs 24 in-house lobbyists and nearly 20 lobbying firms.
It spent $15 million–plus on D.C. lobbying last year—“more than any other U.S. company except for Google and AT&T.”
Oh, and Trump’s new secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan, spent 31 years at Boeing and has been reported to lavish praise on the company’s products at meetings and criticize those of its competitors.
Does that explain why the U.S. was the last advanced nation in the world to ground the Max 8 and 9?
