SAFETY, comfort, schedule, economy
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Join Date: May 2000
Location: mars (Celebrating 20 years on PPRUNE)
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(deep sigh) The science is known, the technology is known, the systems and procedures are known and available for every link in the safety chain (or every hole in the swiss cheese). The current systems are perfectly capable of producing relatively safe outcomes ...........if they are only applied. Jeremiads about safety are a waste of time and good electrons.
(pause, deep sigh)
After thinking about this for a while, I think the OP may have a point.
Boeing had a bad spell back in the early 1990s - in a relatively short period of time there were three major crashes that were ultimately blamed on engineering shortcomings. The Lauda 767 (T/R deployment in-flight) and two 747F crashes due to the fuse pin failures. In the aftermath, Boeing revamped their Safety process (I first got pulled into the Propulsion Safety Review Board (SRB) at that time). The SRB charter was simple - there won't be another Boeing crash due to engineering shortcomings. As I've noted previously, I was directly involved in the Lauda investigation - it was an eye-opening, painful experience (and it wasn't even my system at fault). On the way to one of the Lauda investigation meetings I was walking with one of the senior managers. He talked about how, years earlier, he'd been involved in the investigation of two 727 crashes shortly after EIS and how difficult that had been. He then stated "You're never going to look at your job the same way again" - and he was absolutely right. Experiencing something like that changes you.
That was over 25 years ago. Like me, most of the people involved back then are no longer with the company. The people running the various safety programs at Boeing have never experienced what it means to get it wrong.
Until now....
Boeing had a bad spell back in the early 1990s - in a relatively short period of time there were three major crashes that were ultimately blamed on engineering shortcomings. The Lauda 767 (T/R deployment in-flight) and two 747F crashes due to the fuse pin failures. In the aftermath, Boeing revamped their Safety process (I first got pulled into the Propulsion Safety Review Board (SRB) at that time). The SRB charter was simple - there won't be another Boeing crash due to engineering shortcomings. As I've noted previously, I was directly involved in the Lauda investigation - it was an eye-opening, painful experience (and it wasn't even my system at fault). On the way to one of the Lauda investigation meetings I was walking with one of the senior managers. He talked about how, years earlier, he'd been involved in the investigation of two 727 crashes shortly after EIS and how difficult that had been. He then stated "You're never going to look at your job the same way again" - and he was absolutely right. Experiencing something like that changes you.
That was over 25 years ago. Like me, most of the people involved back then are no longer with the company. The people running the various safety programs at Boeing have never experienced what it means to get it wrong.
Until now....
