On the same day, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on a somewhat more structured (no pun intended) subject. It heard three witnesses, each with qualifications most people would say make them "experts", on the subject of the final report of the FAA's Organization Designation Authorization Expert Review Panel. As anyone following the Boeing saga will know, the Panel was mandated by the Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act - the legislation which served as the vehicle for Congressional urges to "do something" after the MAX accidents as well as vehicle for arguably meaningful reforms.
Witnesses: Dr. Javier de Luis (lecturer at MIT Dep't of Aeronautics and Astronautics);
Dr. Tracy Dillinger (Manager for Safety Culture and Human Factors, NASA); and
Dr. Najmedin Meshkati (Professor, USC School of Engineering, Aviation Safety and Security Program).
link for Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell (D. Wash.) opening statement:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024...safety-culture
It almost never fails to amaze me how a hearing before a legislative committe can be mistaken for, or viewed as, the equivalent of full fact discovery in civil litigation in federal district court. I mean, to cut this short without stomping on parts of it to make it fit together, there is no equivalent of obligation to produce all relevant information, and nothing equivalent to cross-examination (partisan rotation of questioning, no, that's not cross).
I won't prejudge the individual whistleblowers' stories on the merits of what they've said and are saying. I will, however, say that their respective recitations depend on their having first painted a picture in which they not only are doing the right thing in the specific situation, and doing it in reasonable ways, but every action taken by company management in response is malevolently directed against them. Sometimes that picture turns out to be true, correct and valid. But it is far from the default setting, and cannot be taken as the default merely by reciting "whistleblower". Perhaps too much paper chasing of billable hours has turned this SLF/attorney cynical (or even, jaundiced).