Originally Posted by
WillowRun 6-3
. . . .
Count me as one SLF-poster who still hopes the FOIA litigation will get accelerated and require FAA to locate and disgorge the full documentary record on the basis of which the FAA proposes to base its decision to return the aircraft to flight operations, even if that requires Boeing's proprietary information to be turned over to the FOIA plaintiffs' panel of authoritative reviewers and experts.
+1
The manufacturer is expected to adhere to the highest possible design and engineering standards and the regulator must ensure that that is the case. This bi-partisan report emphasizes this clearly. For Boeing
and the FAA to fix the severe problems delineated in the Committee Report, these events must be examined from the point of view of NASA's problems which led to both the Challenger and Columbia accidents.*
This is an inter or meta-organizational failure on a massive scale and can't be fixed without acknowledging this.
Even as we are in a time when all words and actions are at
singular risk of being politicized, I still think that this report has come closest to examining causes - for Boeing it may be a roadmap. They, especially, would do well to check the nonsensical CEOspeak, stop making impossible public platitudes of "doing better" and take what is said about their organzation seriously. These events, actions and their fall-out are a tired and familiar well-worn path of corporate behaviour.
It is worth quoting Feynman once again, who, during the Rogers Commission work, said, "
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled" which is even more critically applicable in our present times.
Through the examination of, for example, how NASA became better after Challenger and Columbia may hold answers for Boeing but only if they are understood and sincerely wanted. They are at the bottom of a dangerously-deep hole that they have collectively dug for themselves, and in real life there is no "Back" button, just the hard work of deciding what is the right balance between shareholder value and making safe airplanes.