Engineers designed and built that plane. The plane is fundamentally flawed. The engineer in charge absolutely deserves to be let go. Frankly, it should have happened after the first 2 crashes made it clear that there were problems with the plane. And they shouldn't stop there.
The problems almost certainly go deeper than engineering. It sounds like there's pressure to cut costs. Still, an engineer has a responsibility to design and build a safe airplane. If the budget prevents that, it's still the engineers' responsibility to make sure that whatever plane they can build is safe or they shouldn't build it. It's a total cop out to put it all on the MBA's when it's layer upon layer of failures that result in a plane as bad as the 737 MAX. Engineers in commercial aviation shouldn't ever be afforded the luxury of pointing the finger at their bosses. Their job above all others is to protect lives by building a good airplane.
No, that's a meme. Clearly the problem with the door plug was a production process problem. They engineered a bad process[1] and it led to a failure. Was that due to pressure or interference from someone on the "MBA side"? Well, maybe? But that needs evidence before you can make a statement like you did, and so far we don't have it.
[1] Seems like consensus at this point is that the repair/rework review process had a hole contractors/suppliers could use to skip reviews by changing a category. Again, that might be done for "MBA" reasons but if the process allowed it it's still a bug in the process.
bavent|2 years ago
jm4|2 years ago
The problems almost certainly go deeper than engineering. It sounds like there's pressure to cut costs. Still, an engineer has a responsibility to design and build a safe airplane. If the budget prevents that, it's still the engineers' responsibility to make sure that whatever plane they can build is safe or they shouldn't build it. It's a total cop out to put it all on the MBA's when it's layer upon layer of failures that result in a plane as bad as the 737 MAX. Engineers in commercial aviation shouldn't ever be afforded the luxury of pointing the finger at their bosses. Their job above all others is to protect lives by building a good airplane.
ajross|2 years ago
[1] Seems like consensus at this point is that the repair/rework review process had a hole contractors/suppliers could use to skip reviews by changing a category. Again, that might be done for "MBA" reasons but if the process allowed it it's still a bug in the process.