Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/22/european-regulators-737-max-w.html
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Two captive regulators investigating a third captive regulator. Jesus Christ.
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That worked out so well that we’re now going ahead on the same program for schools, food, pharmaceuticals, and pollution. More to come soon.
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The FAA doesn’t have the public’s best interest in mind and should pay the price for being a puppet for airline industry lobbyists and manufacturers. If their weight in the world is diminished so be it.
Also, China will take a similar position to the Euro regulators. You can bet on that.
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The FAA is one of the currently headless organizations isn’t it?
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If Wikipedia is up to date, you are correct.
Agency executives
- Daniel Elwell, Administrator (acting)
- Stephen Dickson, Administrator (planned nominee)[3][4]
- Victoria B. Wassmer, Deputy Administrator (Acting)
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Boeing admits 737 Max sims didn’t accurately reproduce what flying without MCAS was like
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As they should.
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Good. Boeing execs should face much more punishment than this, but at the very least having multiple regulators eyeballs on the products they make and sell will mean that they have to spend more money buying regulators. And increases the chances that one of the regulators involved will be honest enough to not get bought.
Boeing seemed to not understand that the reason that regulators in other countries were willing to let their products fly without an in-depth study was because of the FAA’s excellent reputation in being thorough and exact in their regulations. Now they’ve cooked that goose good - they’ll have to pay the price in time and money of multiple regulators combing through their designs.
It’s not enough in my mind - people died and I have no doubt that the execs involved will face no real punishment for that - but it’s something at least.
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Another reason I hate Brexit. European regulators are mostly better than any other and the Brexit nutters will have us align with US, in search of a “trade” deal.
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Also:
European regulators: 737 Max won’t fly again until we approve it Airbus has a competing aircraft on sale.
Oliver Milman reports on “enfeebled” U.S. regulators’ inability to do anything about ingredients considered potentially harmful.
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You’re right, but you’re ignoring the logic of next-quarter thinking. The FAAs reputation is only valuable if it can be monetised. One way to monetise that reputation is by abusing it to get an aircraft certified sooner than the full process would allow, pulling potential future earnings into this quarter, rather than the next or the one after that. If the FAAs reputation gets trashed in the process … well … it had no value anyway, until someone extracted it.
In other words, by abusing the trust that has been built up using the money which the public has invested into the FAA over many years in order to make it a valuable and worthwhile institution, Boeing has transferred (more) public money into their private coffers. Win!
In other other words, yet another tragedy of the commons.
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That would be Airbus A320 family.
Green: Airbus A320 family deliveries
Blue : Boeing 737 series deliveries
But no worries, Airbus won’t profit from grounding the 737 MAX (at least not in the short run, where “short” means a couple of years) because you can’t ramp up production just like that.
How the loss of trust in the FAA will play out in the long run remains to be seen.
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specifically, the a320neo. (which prompted the 737MAX designs in the first place).
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