Boeing 737 Max Recertification Testing - Finally.
The problems in the FAA start with the US Congress and end with the US Congress. They underfund the FAA and saddle them with responsibilities and then wash their own hands of responsibility and cave to lobbyists if the FAA isn't keeping up with corporate support**. Unfortunately the Pollyanna concept that voters have any influence over such operational details was swept completely away by Citizens United.
Airlines (most of them) and manufacturers have huge incentives to not cause a crash. In the design and operation there are literally on the order of a billion decisions. To review those requires a staff/skill level that is even larger. That oversight is expected to review to see if the decisions made are correct, but also to discover the decisions that weren't made at all.
If the decision tree for MCAS had added "Crew won't trim and won't reduce thrust," particularly after LNI610, then the workable solution wasn't to remind crews about how to manage trim runaway but to simply disable electric trim for all flights. However no one noticed that branch was missing, so no one made a decision based on it.
Missing decisions are the most difficult problems to find.
As to work-load. This could be reduced if the FAA required industry to include them on automated tools that track approval status. At the time MCAS was being prepared the software would have been in a software controlled vault that required multiple approvals to advance through the process. Such systems can send e-mails to a list of participants and can include the differences between versions to make understanding the changes simpler. None of the recommendations in Report AV2023025 suggest any such automated manner to ensure all parties get unfiltered information. This is an enhancement to lengthy status reports that might miss or minimize details.
I expect that with full disclosure the FAA would not have identified the potential interaction between a valid, but incorrect AoA sensor and MCAS. By avoiding a paper trail the FAA avoids responsibility.
**This is why the FAA has worked on eliminating R/C hobby fliers in the US and ignoring that as many people die in GA accidents in the USA each year as died on the two 737 MAX aircraft, including several avoidable mid-air collisions every year.
Airlines (most of them) and manufacturers have huge incentives to not cause a crash. In the design and operation there are literally on the order of a billion decisions. To review those requires a staff/skill level that is even larger. That oversight is expected to review to see if the decisions made are correct, but also to discover the decisions that weren't made at all.
If the decision tree for MCAS had added "Crew won't trim and won't reduce thrust," particularly after LNI610, then the workable solution wasn't to remind crews about how to manage trim runaway but to simply disable electric trim for all flights. However no one noticed that branch was missing, so no one made a decision based on it.
Missing decisions are the most difficult problems to find.
As to work-load. This could be reduced if the FAA required industry to include them on automated tools that track approval status. At the time MCAS was being prepared the software would have been in a software controlled vault that required multiple approvals to advance through the process. Such systems can send e-mails to a list of participants and can include the differences between versions to make understanding the changes simpler. None of the recommendations in Report AV2023025 suggest any such automated manner to ensure all parties get unfiltered information. This is an enhancement to lengthy status reports that might miss or minimize details.
I expect that with full disclosure the FAA would not have identified the potential interaction between a valid, but incorrect AoA sensor and MCAS. By avoiding a paper trail the FAA avoids responsibility.
**This is why the FAA has worked on eliminating R/C hobby fliers in the US and ignoring that as many people die in GA accidents in the USA each year as died on the two 737 MAX aircraft, including several avoidable mid-air collisions every year.
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MechEngr, aren't the two problems in your asterisk-note issues or questions of policy? And therefore subjects about which, if there was sufficient consensus, Congress could exert significant influence if not control (especially in reauthorization)? By consensus, the reference is to the level of importance to assign to GA safety deficiencies and R/C hobbyists, and not the merits of the reforms you imply should be made (as to which I'll assume you're entirely correct).
The political accountability for any Executive Branch agency doesn't exist in isolation and - quite obviously - not an the "operational" level. A voter who may have been disgusted with, let's say, a DoT secretary grandstanding for publicity while adding nothing of value in the aftermath of, let's say, a serious railroad accident still sees that issue as just one of several that will motivate a vote one way or the other (or not voting). The Citizens United decision did not alter that calculus.
And since labor organizations are relatively unconstrained to make political donations, why shouldn't corporations have the same First Amendment right?
The political accountability for any Executive Branch agency doesn't exist in isolation and - quite obviously - not an the "operational" level. A voter who may have been disgusted with, let's say, a DoT secretary grandstanding for publicity while adding nothing of value in the aftermath of, let's say, a serious railroad accident still sees that issue as just one of several that will motivate a vote one way or the other (or not voting). The Citizens United decision did not alter that calculus.
And since labor organizations are relatively unconstrained to make political donations, why shouldn't corporations have the same First Amendment right?
If the decision tree for MCAS had added "Crew won't trim and won't reduce thrust," particularly after LNI610, then the workable solution wasn't to remind crews about how to manage trim runaway but to simply disable electric trim for all flights. However no one noticed that branch was missing, so no one made a decision based on it.
Psychophysiological entity
For 'tough', read catastrophic. Sorry, "Catastrophic".
I don't think any logic tree would have had a branch leading to, 'won't reduce thrust.' I've tried again and again to put myself in that skipper's mindset and only come up with the fear of the nose pitching down with reduced power. I haven't searched for the graphs yet, but I don't think there was a break in that high power setting. Hard to plan for such an event.
I don't think any logic tree would have had a branch leading to, 'won't reduce thrust.' I've tried again and again to put myself in that skipper's mindset and only come up with the fear of the nose pitching down with reduced power. I haven't searched for the graphs yet, but I don't think there was a break in that high power setting. Hard to plan for such an event.
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Significant Pretrial Win for Plaintiffs in Federal District Court in Chicago
United States District Court Judge Alonso has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs with regard to an issue of damages that has been noted and discussed on this forum. As framed by the Court, "whether plaintiffs can recover for emotional distress that their decedents suffered during the flight prior to suffering any physical injury." For those perhaps interested in reading the ruling as such, the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is 19 C 2170 (Consolidated), "In Re: Ethiopian AIrlines, Flight ET 302 Crash." (This SLF/attorney guesses that posting a pdf of a court decision won't be popular here.)
A few observations holding some relevance. The ruling delves incisively into the pertinent questions of Illinois tort law (including both Survival actions and Wrongful Death actions). What I think is significant - beyond the win for the plaintiffs of course - is that the Court had to "read around the law" - that is, evidently it realized that the issue to be decided was not resolved yet by good precedent and it had to conduct a process of law-finding, if you will, of its own. Not making law, rather interpreting it. lndeed, as the Court stated, following a methodical and quite careful review of caselaw precedents proffered by both sides, "where that leaves the Court is with little to go on in determining how to apply Illinois law to this case."
Notice, with the large number of international conventions and documents of official standing by which international civil aviation operates, nonetheless, a serious question of availability of damages turns on an interpretation of State law (here, Illinois, simply because that is where Boeing moved its corporate office). The law of the United States as a country figures into the legal reasoning insofar as the District Court must follow certain principles, in deciding what a particular State's law is, or would be if the State Supreme Court were presented with the issue. I'm not saying this just to talk lawyer-talk. It strikes me that there are legal processes for individuals to become lawyers in each of the 50 states, but not a United States-wide license to practice law. Would it be useful for such a licensure to exist for the practice of international civil aviation law as issues grow in complexity, technological change accelerates or advances at least, and as geopolitical conflicts impact airspace, aircaraft leasing and insurance, .... I could go on,.... but back to Chicago.
Here is a good summary of what the ruling decided: "A jury could reasonably infer from the evidence that will be presented at trial that the passengers on ET 302 perceived that they were going to crash, horrifically, to their certain deaths."
Part of the set of prior decisions the court considered was the litigation arising from the May 25 1979 crash of Flight 191 near Chicago O'Hare. In earlier posts I advocated that there is precedent, of a sort, to be found in that accident, as the aviators who so tragically perished in that crash certainly were aware, "horrifically, [of] their certain death." Disclaimer: I do not know whether the litigation that took place over Flight 191 included any development of the issue, in specific context of the pilots. But I'll track it down, because this ruling isn't gong to be the last time such an issue arises.
Finally, from the ruling:
To the extent Boeing’s argument is that the beneficiaries may not testify that their grief was increased by their contemplation of the emotional distress their loved ones must have suffered
in their final moments, the Court rejects it. Boeing does not appear to dispute that what happened during these final moments is part of the “process or manner of death.” And, as the Court explained
above, there will be evidence describing the “history of the flight” and “the aircraft’s movements” during those final few moments, the substance of which will not be new to the beneficiaries. Based
on this evidence, contemplation of what the passengers must have experienced as the airplane crashed is hardly mere speculation. There is sufficient evidence to support a reasonable inference
that these passengers experienced pre-impact fright and terror, and that experience is part of the “process or manner of death.” Therefore, the Court is not inclined to bar evidence of how
contemplation of that emotional distress affects the plaintiffs’ grief.
A few observations holding some relevance. The ruling delves incisively into the pertinent questions of Illinois tort law (including both Survival actions and Wrongful Death actions). What I think is significant - beyond the win for the plaintiffs of course - is that the Court had to "read around the law" - that is, evidently it realized that the issue to be decided was not resolved yet by good precedent and it had to conduct a process of law-finding, if you will, of its own. Not making law, rather interpreting it. lndeed, as the Court stated, following a methodical and quite careful review of caselaw precedents proffered by both sides, "where that leaves the Court is with little to go on in determining how to apply Illinois law to this case."
Notice, with the large number of international conventions and documents of official standing by which international civil aviation operates, nonetheless, a serious question of availability of damages turns on an interpretation of State law (here, Illinois, simply because that is where Boeing moved its corporate office). The law of the United States as a country figures into the legal reasoning insofar as the District Court must follow certain principles, in deciding what a particular State's law is, or would be if the State Supreme Court were presented with the issue. I'm not saying this just to talk lawyer-talk. It strikes me that there are legal processes for individuals to become lawyers in each of the 50 states, but not a United States-wide license to practice law. Would it be useful for such a licensure to exist for the practice of international civil aviation law as issues grow in complexity, technological change accelerates or advances at least, and as geopolitical conflicts impact airspace, aircaraft leasing and insurance, .... I could go on,.... but back to Chicago.
Here is a good summary of what the ruling decided: "A jury could reasonably infer from the evidence that will be presented at trial that the passengers on ET 302 perceived that they were going to crash, horrifically, to their certain deaths."
Part of the set of prior decisions the court considered was the litigation arising from the May 25 1979 crash of Flight 191 near Chicago O'Hare. In earlier posts I advocated that there is precedent, of a sort, to be found in that accident, as the aviators who so tragically perished in that crash certainly were aware, "horrifically, [of] their certain death." Disclaimer: I do not know whether the litigation that took place over Flight 191 included any development of the issue, in specific context of the pilots. But I'll track it down, because this ruling isn't gong to be the last time such an issue arises.
Finally, from the ruling:
To the extent Boeing’s argument is that the beneficiaries may not testify that their grief was increased by their contemplation of the emotional distress their loved ones must have suffered
in their final moments, the Court rejects it. Boeing does not appear to dispute that what happened during these final moments is part of the “process or manner of death.” And, as the Court explained
above, there will be evidence describing the “history of the flight” and “the aircraft’s movements” during those final few moments, the substance of which will not be new to the beneficiaries. Based
on this evidence, contemplation of what the passengers must have experienced as the airplane crashed is hardly mere speculation. There is sufficient evidence to support a reasonable inference
that these passengers experienced pre-impact fright and terror, and that experience is part of the “process or manner of death.” Therefore, the Court is not inclined to bar evidence of how
contemplation of that emotional distress affects the plaintiffs’ grief.
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 31st May 2023 at 14:39.
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I haven't found the decision anywhere yet except the Pacer.gov website, which is a pay -walled user-id site. Maybe there's a way but it eludes me so far.
American justice, for sale to the high bidder** and best lobbyists. Thank God Pacer stands between the public record and the public.
I do wonder as to the effect of dynamiting this particular worm can. It's similar to how US courts made police invulnerable to the majority of the most heinous acts and how courts said it was OK for police to take anything from a person if they said the magic words "Civil Asset Forfeiture" and how the requirement for a "well regulated militia" vanished to allow the US to lead the world in children gunned down in classrooms.
Now, if only Boeing can be made insolvent. That is the goal, right? It cannot be the cynical belief that money will ease the pain they suffered on behalf of others. They can't realistically be putting a price on lives.
**Just to add - Sacklers.
I do wonder as to the effect of dynamiting this particular worm can. It's similar to how US courts made police invulnerable to the majority of the most heinous acts and how courts said it was OK for police to take anything from a person if they said the magic words "Civil Asset Forfeiture" and how the requirement for a "well regulated militia" vanished to allow the US to lead the world in children gunned down in classrooms.
Now, if only Boeing can be made insolvent. That is the goal, right? It cannot be the cynical belief that money will ease the pain they suffered on behalf of others. They can't realistically be putting a price on lives.
**Just to add - Sacklers.
Last edited by MechEngr; 31st May 2023 at 18:04.
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Just a small correction - Pacer doesn't charge anything if the user doesn't exceed 30 bucks in charges per calendar quarter. At a dime per page, that's a lot of use. So not standing actually between the public and, etc.
Paywall is paywall even if they let the riff-raff have a price-off peek. Government should be posting this free as a public record I already paid taxes to have stored and indexed. Doesn't the court also collect filing fees? I don't care if Pacer allows poverty on the "dime per page" (costs them 0.000000001 cents to host) charity.
But then I recall some recent hoopla about some court had been redirecting fees to decorating and remodeling when it was supposed to be for document management. Ah - it is PACER https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ecords-225821/
And it appears to be more poorly managed than the FAA NOTAM system.
But then I recall some recent hoopla about some court had been redirecting fees to decorating and remodeling when it was supposed to be for document management. Ah - it is PACER https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ecords-225821/
And it appears to be more poorly managed than the FAA NOTAM system.
I'm sure the Federal Courts have completely reformed since then. Not sure where more info would come from. Anyone appearing before the court would be a fool to mention how screwed up they are, and only those in direct contact with the Court would be able to pierce the veil (robe?) which was mentioned as a huge problem in that article.
They still say 10 cents per page returned as a search result, so if a search returns 250 documents of 10 pages each that language, however vague, seems like it's billable as $250 - with giving the user a copy of any document an additional 10 cents per page, up to $3 limit per some documents. They emphasize the way to keep the search price down is to give the exact document number. Which, for the general public, will not be known. Thus a search, billed directly to the credit card attached to the account, to find that document number might get very expensive.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding why they are so keen on making sure the user is informed of just how expensive using this service can be by using the phrase "no limit" to the cost of a search.
Nevertheless, back to the can of worms that will be blown to bits if PTSD from imagining the suffering of others can be a cause of action - can't see that turning out well, except for the lawyers. Perhaps the late night psychics can be sworn as expert witnesses to vouch for the experiences relayed by the deceased.
Perhaps the reason for the electronic window shades in new Boeing aircraft is a version of the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses** - they go black to avoid the wearer seeing what's about to happen and shield the wearer from worrying about it.
Are you just giddy at the idea of Boeing insolvency? Seems like giddy as this lawsuit hasn't anything to do with recertification testing.
**a plot device in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
They still say 10 cents per page returned as a search result, so if a search returns 250 documents of 10 pages each that language, however vague, seems like it's billable as $250 - with giving the user a copy of any document an additional 10 cents per page, up to $3 limit per some documents. They emphasize the way to keep the search price down is to give the exact document number. Which, for the general public, will not be known. Thus a search, billed directly to the credit card attached to the account, to find that document number might get very expensive.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding why they are so keen on making sure the user is informed of just how expensive using this service can be by using the phrase "no limit" to the cost of a search.
Nevertheless, back to the can of worms that will be blown to bits if PTSD from imagining the suffering of others can be a cause of action - can't see that turning out well, except for the lawyers. Perhaps the late night psychics can be sworn as expert witnesses to vouch for the experiences relayed by the deceased.
Perhaps the reason for the electronic window shades in new Boeing aircraft is a version of the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses** - they go black to avoid the wearer seeing what's about to happen and shield the wearer from worrying about it.
Are you just giddy at the idea of Boeing insolvency? Seems like giddy as this lawsuit hasn't anything to do with recertification testing.
**a plot device in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
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Thank you, MechEngr, for de facto inviting further writing here (after a day of CLE programming I could use something fun). I'll address your points above in reverse order (without implication thereby on their merits).
Boeing insolvency is not something I would cheer, encourage, welcome or otherwise be associated with positively. If you've read even one of ten posts I've written on this forum taking the OEM to task for its various and sundry failures, that would be clear. I haven't ever urged the company to bite the dust (while a good number of very knowledgeable posters have wished for that result here). About the most strident post I've written decrying the state of corporate affairs was one which wished for a return of William "Wimpy" Winpisinger, described (iirc) as aggressive, blunt, radical, flamboyant, and outspoken (according to some biography). I'll say something I couldn't support factually - I never had the honor of meeting the great union leader - but I believe anyway: Winpisinger would want to see the company get back to engineering excellence and the basics of building quality airplanes - paying the price for its misdeeds but not insolvency. (Okay, it's a lawyer thing - don't even think about putting words in my mouth.)
And the tort cases in Chicago aren't aimed at insolvency, won't result in insolvency, and couldn't in any rational calculus lead to insolvency. (I'll save for another day a subpoint about what you might say to the plaintiffs in the case about their losses, how you might give the back of the hand to their claims. Perhaps I've misread your approach.)
As it happens, the recertification thread was simply the most recently active. Did I say the case has a bearing on recertification? - of course not. The other most active thread recently, iirc, involved the criminal case againist Boeing in Texas, and (again iirc) was topically pointed at the case against Forkner. These seem less ongoing, with the exception of the DPA matter pending in federal appellate court, which is even more legalistic and thus not germane to pro pilots even insofar as such aviators do take note of legal matters and affairs. Maybe the tort case in Chicago, which may proceed to trial as soon as June 20, will impact ongoing certification matters, but if so, I don't know that.
Second, perhaps you do know the difference between wrongful death actions, and Survival Act actions. It matters here because you've conflated two different types of claims, both at issue in the case in Chicago and both changed by this recent ruling. The wrongful death claim is one brought by the decedent's surviving spouse, children, other beneficiaries. The ruling says that these claims can include damages for the suffering these individuals experienced as a result of the pre-death suffering their decedents experienced. On the other hand, a Survival Act claim is for the legal wrongs and resulting damages suffered by the decedent himself or herself, which claims survive after the death and thus can be brought by the personal representative of the decedent. These involve the pre-death suffering of the doomed passengers, and not anything suffered by the surviving family and beneficiaries. So neat little references to psychics are not at all relevant. And besides, the court ruled that no speculative evidence could be admitted - and that the basic facts of the descent and other manuevers or gyrations of the aircraft in its fatal plunge would be sufficient to state facts for a jury to consider. And not least, this is not an outlier ruling; there are other courts in other states which have reached similar results.
Third, I think one of us misunderstands how to use Pacer, or how others use it. All you need is enough info about the case, whether names of parties or something other, and the specific court where it is pending, and you can run a docket report listing all the court file contents. Each has a number and is described briefly. The docket report is only a handful of pages. They don't download or print automatically - you pick what you want to review. True, an individual unschooled in court processes especially federal civil procedure (or criminal procedure, but that's a world in which I have not practiced law, so . .. .) might not know which document to download. But the picture you have painted about Pacer usage leading to escalating and unreasonable, even unbelievable or astronomical monetary charges, is just entirely contrary to actual experience.
(I'd gladly email the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to a moderator, if there really are forum people who want to read it for themselves. It appears that access to Pacer documents includes personally identifiable information, and, you understand, anonymous callsign and all that....)
Boeing insolvency is not something I would cheer, encourage, welcome or otherwise be associated with positively. If you've read even one of ten posts I've written on this forum taking the OEM to task for its various and sundry failures, that would be clear. I haven't ever urged the company to bite the dust (while a good number of very knowledgeable posters have wished for that result here). About the most strident post I've written decrying the state of corporate affairs was one which wished for a return of William "Wimpy" Winpisinger, described (iirc) as aggressive, blunt, radical, flamboyant, and outspoken (according to some biography). I'll say something I couldn't support factually - I never had the honor of meeting the great union leader - but I believe anyway: Winpisinger would want to see the company get back to engineering excellence and the basics of building quality airplanes - paying the price for its misdeeds but not insolvency. (Okay, it's a lawyer thing - don't even think about putting words in my mouth.)
And the tort cases in Chicago aren't aimed at insolvency, won't result in insolvency, and couldn't in any rational calculus lead to insolvency. (I'll save for another day a subpoint about what you might say to the plaintiffs in the case about their losses, how you might give the back of the hand to their claims. Perhaps I've misread your approach.)
As it happens, the recertification thread was simply the most recently active. Did I say the case has a bearing on recertification? - of course not. The other most active thread recently, iirc, involved the criminal case againist Boeing in Texas, and (again iirc) was topically pointed at the case against Forkner. These seem less ongoing, with the exception of the DPA matter pending in federal appellate court, which is even more legalistic and thus not germane to pro pilots even insofar as such aviators do take note of legal matters and affairs. Maybe the tort case in Chicago, which may proceed to trial as soon as June 20, will impact ongoing certification matters, but if so, I don't know that.
Second, perhaps you do know the difference between wrongful death actions, and Survival Act actions. It matters here because you've conflated two different types of claims, both at issue in the case in Chicago and both changed by this recent ruling. The wrongful death claim is one brought by the decedent's surviving spouse, children, other beneficiaries. The ruling says that these claims can include damages for the suffering these individuals experienced as a result of the pre-death suffering their decedents experienced. On the other hand, a Survival Act claim is for the legal wrongs and resulting damages suffered by the decedent himself or herself, which claims survive after the death and thus can be brought by the personal representative of the decedent. These involve the pre-death suffering of the doomed passengers, and not anything suffered by the surviving family and beneficiaries. So neat little references to psychics are not at all relevant. And besides, the court ruled that no speculative evidence could be admitted - and that the basic facts of the descent and other manuevers or gyrations of the aircraft in its fatal plunge would be sufficient to state facts for a jury to consider. And not least, this is not an outlier ruling; there are other courts in other states which have reached similar results.
Third, I think one of us misunderstands how to use Pacer, or how others use it. All you need is enough info about the case, whether names of parties or something other, and the specific court where it is pending, and you can run a docket report listing all the court file contents. Each has a number and is described briefly. The docket report is only a handful of pages. They don't download or print automatically - you pick what you want to review. True, an individual unschooled in court processes especially federal civil procedure (or criminal procedure, but that's a world in which I have not practiced law, so . .. .) might not know which document to download. But the picture you have painted about Pacer usage leading to escalating and unreasonable, even unbelievable or astronomical monetary charges, is just entirely contrary to actual experience.
(I'd gladly email the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to a moderator, if there really are forum people who want to read it for themselves. It appears that access to Pacer documents includes personally identifiable information, and, you understand, anonymous callsign and all that....)
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 31st May 2023 at 23:12.
Psychophysiological entity
I have, a couple of times, mentioned the affect Boeing's strangled description of MCAS might have had on the Ethiopian captain. In the previous chapter, the captain had died. The character playing this scene takes on fixed stare and paralysed throttle arm.
I invited creating a separate thread, at least that was the intended implication.
As far as I can tell from the really bad interface and help screens, PACER charges for the page count of items returned on that list. It also charges separately if items from that list are downloaded.
If a low-time user goes to PACER and asks for cases involving Boeing, the way that one might with Google, expecting to whittle it down with more sophisticated searches, then PACER might easily turn up thousands of dollars worth of charges.
Which brings to mind - how did you know to search PACER for this particular recent information?
You protest about not wanting insolvency - but never express the damages you feel will 100% end all litigation. Previously it's been that Boeing has not been punished enough. $20 Billion has crippled the ability of Boeing to compete. Insolvency is the next step. If the participants want to let others know of their suffering there are likely 100 or so ghost writers in the US who can put together a tell-all book. The only reason to go to the courts for this is to try to extract financial revenge sufficient to salve all their wounds and that is the extraction of all the financial value of Boeing to put an end to the company. Or it's just a callous attempt at a money grab. Perhaps I'm just cynical.
As far as I can tell from the really bad interface and help screens, PACER charges for the page count of items returned on that list. It also charges separately if items from that list are downloaded.
If a low-time user goes to PACER and asks for cases involving Boeing, the way that one might with Google, expecting to whittle it down with more sophisticated searches, then PACER might easily turn up thousands of dollars worth of charges.
Which brings to mind - how did you know to search PACER for this particular recent information?
You protest about not wanting insolvency - but never express the damages you feel will 100% end all litigation. Previously it's been that Boeing has not been punished enough. $20 Billion has crippled the ability of Boeing to compete. Insolvency is the next step. If the participants want to let others know of their suffering there are likely 100 or so ghost writers in the US who can put together a tell-all book. The only reason to go to the courts for this is to try to extract financial revenge sufficient to salve all their wounds and that is the extraction of all the financial value of Boeing to put an end to the company. Or it's just a callous attempt at a money grab. Perhaps I'm just cynical.
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Okay. Pacer is soon-to-be classed as a dead horse, as far as I'm concerned. I'll just reiterate that the docket report on even long-running cases is just a few pages. Nothing gets downloaded off that report unless it is selected for download. I have not studied the Pacer system; I've used it pretty easily, and I don't have reason to believe its primary purpose was to make all federal court filings available online for free. In any event, no one with even rudimentary knowledge of federal courts in the U.S. would search Pacer for cases in general involving Boeing - and anyone who did have basic knowledge would know that there is a cost associated with treating it like it's Google or some other free-to-search platform.
As to this ruling, I first saw news reports of it in the online edition of a major newspaper. (Since the relevance of your inquiry eludes me, I'll add that looking for the case name or number, I read several more news outlet reports the same morning, all with mostly the same content and a few brief slightyly different items.)
As for damages. I'm going to agree to disagree. I'll mostly leave aside the assertion that some as yet unspecified damages award, after all appeals have been exhausted, would add such a burden that the company would become insolvent. I don't think that is valid but I'm not a securities analyst or a financial analyst and so I'm not arguing that point in substance here, other than to say I don't think your asserting it makes it true. More broadly, and not only because I'm an attorney, I believe in the U.S. civil justice system, even with its many, and serious, flaws. And in that system, it is for the jury to determine damages, subject to court and appellate review. Thus, I don't have a number to propose - that's for plaintiffs and their counsel to propose and advocate.
Not least, as for your most general point, that the plaintiffs in this lawsuit do not deserve financial compensation based on a variety of contentions you assert, well, your opinion is your opinion. I'm imagining something like a joint "struggle session" - U.S. style and not exactly like the Red Guards - in which you berate the plaintiffs for their wrongheadedness of pursuing financial damages in tort, and I (or others posting here) berate Boeing management and directors for their deceit, malfeasance, and failure to uphold what should have been a sacred trust of engineering excellence and high fidelity to aviation safety. In other words, just as my views are completely unconvincing (or worse) to you, you have not convinced me that the doors to the courthouse in ordinary civil litigation should be closed to these plaintiffs, not for any of the various reasons you've argued, or some of those reasons, or all of those reasons.
As to this ruling, I first saw news reports of it in the online edition of a major newspaper. (Since the relevance of your inquiry eludes me, I'll add that looking for the case name or number, I read several more news outlet reports the same morning, all with mostly the same content and a few brief slightyly different items.)
As for damages. I'm going to agree to disagree. I'll mostly leave aside the assertion that some as yet unspecified damages award, after all appeals have been exhausted, would add such a burden that the company would become insolvent. I don't think that is valid but I'm not a securities analyst or a financial analyst and so I'm not arguing that point in substance here, other than to say I don't think your asserting it makes it true. More broadly, and not only because I'm an attorney, I believe in the U.S. civil justice system, even with its many, and serious, flaws. And in that system, it is for the jury to determine damages, subject to court and appellate review. Thus, I don't have a number to propose - that's for plaintiffs and their counsel to propose and advocate.
Not least, as for your most general point, that the plaintiffs in this lawsuit do not deserve financial compensation based on a variety of contentions you assert, well, your opinion is your opinion. I'm imagining something like a joint "struggle session" - U.S. style and not exactly like the Red Guards - in which you berate the plaintiffs for their wrongheadedness of pursuing financial damages in tort, and I (or others posting here) berate Boeing management and directors for their deceit, malfeasance, and failure to uphold what should have been a sacred trust of engineering excellence and high fidelity to aviation safety. In other words, just as my views are completely unconvincing (or worse) to you, you have not convinced me that the doors to the courthouse in ordinary civil litigation should be closed to these plaintiffs, not for any of the various reasons you've argued, or some of those reasons, or all of those reasons.
Did you demand that the Boeing management be held to task after the Lion Air crash. If not, what was it about the Ethiopian crash reporting changed your mind?
I believe your mind was convinced by the misstatements of the Ethiopian government that the pilots followed, without failure or any deviation, the instructions given them by Boeing and the FAA and you set that as your stake to which all other outrage is anchored because those instructions "didn't work."
All that needs to happen is for Boeing to get behind the investment curve and they can follow Douglas and Lockheed into the dust. I didn't ask for a number - I asked for an outcome. How badly hurt do you want Boeing to be? I suspect it is bankruptcy. Nothing short of the death penalty for the corporation. Because of that stake you planted.
What Boeing expected to happen with MCAS did happen. The day before the Lion Air crash. Nearly textbook execution of trim problem handling, almost exactly the way the failure mode team expected. Same initial flight deviations, but no one died, nor did any appear to express they felt they might. The pilots wrote it up as annoying.
How did the exact same plane with the exact same problem go from controllable to uncontrolled in less than 24 hours? Training and attitude.
That no one called for grounding the fleet after Lion Air is enough to tell me that no one thought MCAS was a problem.
Sure - this is the US, home to civil suits over the amount or kind of grass on a lawn. Everyone should be welcome to air any grievance they have the money to pay to pursue as long as a lot of money goes to lawyers. I don't care about that for this instance - I care about the intended result - what do the plaintiffs expect from this?
One claim "The attorneys want to call experts who would testify that the passengers likely suffered physical injuries and emotional trauma before the crash."
If they prevail on that then every bumpy flight is filled with passengers suffering emotional trauma. Where will experts come from? Are there people who have been killed in crashes who come back to testify that before the crash they were overcome by fear of dying and that this thought, not held long enough to make it to long term memory, haunted them for the rest of their lives? I guess it did. Like someone falling from a cliff has the rest of their life to avoid crashing on the rocks below.
Is it too much to ask if you think they can be made whole? Or is this revenge? Or a cash grab? Is there any amount large enough that no company will ever think of this failure to imagine a crew doing all the wrong steps in the wrong order and create a system that operates correctly in spite of 100% human failure? Or it doesn't matter because you personally are aggrieved at the actions of Boeing and are looking for standing on the coattails of this decision?
No point in asking for a legal opinion - you cannot make any because hypothetical, speculation, not being paid a retainer by me - about the likely effect this interpretation of a loophole in the current law will have elsewhere. This same type of loophole interpretation is what allows police to steal money and property under the pretext of Civil Asset Forfeiture and allows police to commit heinous actions and be protected by qualified immunity.
---
I'll reiterate - the PACER terms of use appear to be charge for just making the inquiry in proportion to the size of the returned result. Charged for making the search. No need to deflect about downloading. You appear to agree that it is designed to seriously harm those without legal training - the ultimate paywall. What does a law degree cost? PACER is required to collect only enough to pay for its operation - instead it looks to be a piggy bank, charging far in excess of its operating costs and preventing non-legal trained people from learning about the legal system.
I believe your mind was convinced by the misstatements of the Ethiopian government that the pilots followed, without failure or any deviation, the instructions given them by Boeing and the FAA and you set that as your stake to which all other outrage is anchored because those instructions "didn't work."
All that needs to happen is for Boeing to get behind the investment curve and they can follow Douglas and Lockheed into the dust. I didn't ask for a number - I asked for an outcome. How badly hurt do you want Boeing to be? I suspect it is bankruptcy. Nothing short of the death penalty for the corporation. Because of that stake you planted.
What Boeing expected to happen with MCAS did happen. The day before the Lion Air crash. Nearly textbook execution of trim problem handling, almost exactly the way the failure mode team expected. Same initial flight deviations, but no one died, nor did any appear to express they felt they might. The pilots wrote it up as annoying.
How did the exact same plane with the exact same problem go from controllable to uncontrolled in less than 24 hours? Training and attitude.
That no one called for grounding the fleet after Lion Air is enough to tell me that no one thought MCAS was a problem.
Sure - this is the US, home to civil suits over the amount or kind of grass on a lawn. Everyone should be welcome to air any grievance they have the money to pay to pursue as long as a lot of money goes to lawyers. I don't care about that for this instance - I care about the intended result - what do the plaintiffs expect from this?
One claim "The attorneys want to call experts who would testify that the passengers likely suffered physical injuries and emotional trauma before the crash."
If they prevail on that then every bumpy flight is filled with passengers suffering emotional trauma. Where will experts come from? Are there people who have been killed in crashes who come back to testify that before the crash they were overcome by fear of dying and that this thought, not held long enough to make it to long term memory, haunted them for the rest of their lives? I guess it did. Like someone falling from a cliff has the rest of their life to avoid crashing on the rocks below.
Is it too much to ask if you think they can be made whole? Or is this revenge? Or a cash grab? Is there any amount large enough that no company will ever think of this failure to imagine a crew doing all the wrong steps in the wrong order and create a system that operates correctly in spite of 100% human failure? Or it doesn't matter because you personally are aggrieved at the actions of Boeing and are looking for standing on the coattails of this decision?
No point in asking for a legal opinion - you cannot make any because hypothetical, speculation, not being paid a retainer by me - about the likely effect this interpretation of a loophole in the current law will have elsewhere. This same type of loophole interpretation is what allows police to steal money and property under the pretext of Civil Asset Forfeiture and allows police to commit heinous actions and be protected by qualified immunity.
---
I'll reiterate - the PACER terms of use appear to be charge for just making the inquiry in proportion to the size of the returned result. Charged for making the search. No need to deflect about downloading. You appear to agree that it is designed to seriously harm those without legal training - the ultimate paywall. What does a law degree cost? PACER is required to collect only enough to pay for its operation - instead it looks to be a piggy bank, charging far in excess of its operating costs and preventing non-legal trained people from learning about the legal system.
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Did you demand that the Boeing management be held to task after the Lion Air crash. If not, what was it about the Ethiopian crash reporting changed your mind?
WR - Sure, a lone SLF/attorney writing on an internet forum would have position to "demand" something of Boeing.
And it wasn't the second accident as such - it was the rather substantial volume of reports and analyses pointing out and documenting Boeing's many misdeeds. Of course your knowledge of the flight dynamics and systems performance and connections is far superior to anything I even could try to fake. But your views on where the blame should be placed are the only views I have seen or read about which absolve Boeing. That doesn't make you incorrect, just because you appear to hold unique views absolving Boeing - but it does make it unseemly that you would try to attribute thinking to me that I never have subscribed to or even implied.
I believe your mind was convinced by the misstatements of the Ethiopian government that the pilots followed, without failure or any deviation, the instructions given them by Boeing and the FAA and you set that as your stake to which all other outrage is anchored because those instructions "didn't work."
WR - No, and yet I almost admire the audacity of trying to read things into my mind. But you're incorrect.
All that needs to happen is for Boeing to get behind the investment curve and they can follow Douglas and Lockheed into the dust. I didn't ask for a number - I asked for an outcome. How badly hurt do you want Boeing to be? I suspect it is bankruptcy. Nothing short of the death penalty for the corporation. Because of that stake you planted.
WR - Stake, what stake? Frankly your query makes little or no sense to me. Hurting Boeing was taken off the table when punitive damages were stipulated as not part of the case. The outcome I believe should result is the verdict to be rendered by a jury In a court of competent jurisdiction and subject to trial court and appellate review.
Further.... I'm not going back to dig out posts from some years ago but I do accurately recall other posters who stridently attacked Boeing insofar as it continuing as a company was concerned. I wasn't in their camp (and though not as colorfully as you, they disdained differing views too). You're incorrect; I still don't wish for bk. Again, your audacity in attributing views or opinions to somebody else is almost admirable.
What Boeing expected to happen with MCAS did happen. The day before the Lion Air crash. Nearly textbook execution of trim problem handling, almost exactly the way the failure mode team expected. Same initial flight deviations, but no one died, nor did any appear to express they felt they might. The pilots wrote it up as annoying.
WR - as far as I am aware (and as noted above), even if these facts could be taken at face value as you assert them, you are definitely in a small minority in concluding that Boeing is therefore absolved of liability.
How did the exact same plane with the exact same problem go from controllable to uncontrolled in less than 24 hours? Training and attitude.
WR - Simplistic reduction to this binary description just disregards all the investigative and analytic reports.
That no one called for grounding the fleet after Lion Air is enough to tell me that no one thought MCAS was a problem.
WR - I think the plaintiffs in the Chicago case have something to say about this.
Sure - this is the US, home to civil suits over the amount or kind of grass on a lawn. Everyone should be welcome to air any grievance they have the money to pay to pursue as long as a lot of money goes to lawyers. I don't care about that for this instance - I care about the intended result - what do the plaintiffs expect from this?
WR - That's just the point. They expect their day in court. I've already stated support for the court system in general. Hot McD coffee spill cases don't justify closing courtroom doors to plane crash victims' families. Surely you're aware of review of damages awards at both the trial court and appellate levels?
One claim "The attorneys want to call experts who would testify that the passengers likely suffered physical injuries and emotional trauma before the crash."
If they prevail on that then every bumpy flight is filled with passengers suffering emotional trauma. Where will experts come from? Are there people who have been killed in crashes who come back to testify that before the crash they were overcome by fear of dying and that this thought, not held long enough to make it to long term memory, haunted them for the rest of their lives? I guess it did. Like someone falling from a cliff has the rest of their life to avoid crashing on the rocks below.
WR - Again, I'd pay hard-earned foreign currency to observe you present these views to the actual plaintiffs, or in court on behalf of the company.
Is it too much to ask if you think they can be made whole? Or is this revenge? Or a cash grab? Is there any amount large enough that no company will ever think of this failure to imagine a crew doing all the wrong steps in the wrong order and create a system that operates correctly in spite of 100% human failure? Or it doesn't matter because you personally are aggrieved at the actions of Boeing and are looking for standing on the coattails of this decision?
WR - What are you talking about? The premise of tort law is to provide some compensation, not necessarily precise, and not to satisfy any revenge motives. And "make whole relief" as a concept of compensatory damages works where there are tangible or concrete remedies, obviously not the case in some aspects of personal injury lawsuits. As to holding a personal grievance against Boeing - yikes, no way. (Maybe naively, I'm proceeding on the basis that you're not starting an ad hominem here.) Standing, coattails?--I have idea what you're driving at, but to be safe, "no."
No point in asking for a legal opinion - you cannot make any because hypothetical, speculation, not being paid a retainer by me - about the likely effect this interpretation of a loophole in the current law will have elsewhere. This same type of loophole interpretation is what allows police to steal money and property under the pretext of Civil Asset Forfeiture and allows police to commit heinous actions and be protected by qualified immunity.
WR -There is no connection between the damages analysis and the issues extant with regard to qualified immunity and forfeiture. And the ruling by Judge Alonso isn't about a so-called "loophole."
---
I'll reiterate - the PACER terms of use appear to be charge for just making the inquiry in proportion to the size of the returned result. Charged for making the search. No need to deflect about downloading. You appear to agree that it is designed to seriously harm those without legal training - the ultimate paywall. What does a law degree cost? PACER is required to collect only enough to pay for its operation - instead it looks to be a piggy bank, charging far in excess of its operating costs and preventing non-legal trained people from learning about the legal system.
WR - Sure, a lone SLF/attorney writing on an internet forum would have position to "demand" something of Boeing.
And it wasn't the second accident as such - it was the rather substantial volume of reports and analyses pointing out and documenting Boeing's many misdeeds. Of course your knowledge of the flight dynamics and systems performance and connections is far superior to anything I even could try to fake. But your views on where the blame should be placed are the only views I have seen or read about which absolve Boeing. That doesn't make you incorrect, just because you appear to hold unique views absolving Boeing - but it does make it unseemly that you would try to attribute thinking to me that I never have subscribed to or even implied.
I believe your mind was convinced by the misstatements of the Ethiopian government that the pilots followed, without failure or any deviation, the instructions given them by Boeing and the FAA and you set that as your stake to which all other outrage is anchored because those instructions "didn't work."
WR - No, and yet I almost admire the audacity of trying to read things into my mind. But you're incorrect.
All that needs to happen is for Boeing to get behind the investment curve and they can follow Douglas and Lockheed into the dust. I didn't ask for a number - I asked for an outcome. How badly hurt do you want Boeing to be? I suspect it is bankruptcy. Nothing short of the death penalty for the corporation. Because of that stake you planted.
WR - Stake, what stake? Frankly your query makes little or no sense to me. Hurting Boeing was taken off the table when punitive damages were stipulated as not part of the case. The outcome I believe should result is the verdict to be rendered by a jury In a court of competent jurisdiction and subject to trial court and appellate review.
Further.... I'm not going back to dig out posts from some years ago but I do accurately recall other posters who stridently attacked Boeing insofar as it continuing as a company was concerned. I wasn't in their camp (and though not as colorfully as you, they disdained differing views too). You're incorrect; I still don't wish for bk. Again, your audacity in attributing views or opinions to somebody else is almost admirable.
What Boeing expected to happen with MCAS did happen. The day before the Lion Air crash. Nearly textbook execution of trim problem handling, almost exactly the way the failure mode team expected. Same initial flight deviations, but no one died, nor did any appear to express they felt they might. The pilots wrote it up as annoying.
WR - as far as I am aware (and as noted above), even if these facts could be taken at face value as you assert them, you are definitely in a small minority in concluding that Boeing is therefore absolved of liability.
How did the exact same plane with the exact same problem go from controllable to uncontrolled in less than 24 hours? Training and attitude.
WR - Simplistic reduction to this binary description just disregards all the investigative and analytic reports.
That no one called for grounding the fleet after Lion Air is enough to tell me that no one thought MCAS was a problem.
WR - I think the plaintiffs in the Chicago case have something to say about this.
Sure - this is the US, home to civil suits over the amount or kind of grass on a lawn. Everyone should be welcome to air any grievance they have the money to pay to pursue as long as a lot of money goes to lawyers. I don't care about that for this instance - I care about the intended result - what do the plaintiffs expect from this?
WR - That's just the point. They expect their day in court. I've already stated support for the court system in general. Hot McD coffee spill cases don't justify closing courtroom doors to plane crash victims' families. Surely you're aware of review of damages awards at both the trial court and appellate levels?
One claim "The attorneys want to call experts who would testify that the passengers likely suffered physical injuries and emotional trauma before the crash."
If they prevail on that then every bumpy flight is filled with passengers suffering emotional trauma. Where will experts come from? Are there people who have been killed in crashes who come back to testify that before the crash they were overcome by fear of dying and that this thought, not held long enough to make it to long term memory, haunted them for the rest of their lives? I guess it did. Like someone falling from a cliff has the rest of their life to avoid crashing on the rocks below.
WR - Again, I'd pay hard-earned foreign currency to observe you present these views to the actual plaintiffs, or in court on behalf of the company.
Is it too much to ask if you think they can be made whole? Or is this revenge? Or a cash grab? Is there any amount large enough that no company will ever think of this failure to imagine a crew doing all the wrong steps in the wrong order and create a system that operates correctly in spite of 100% human failure? Or it doesn't matter because you personally are aggrieved at the actions of Boeing and are looking for standing on the coattails of this decision?
WR - What are you talking about? The premise of tort law is to provide some compensation, not necessarily precise, and not to satisfy any revenge motives. And "make whole relief" as a concept of compensatory damages works where there are tangible or concrete remedies, obviously not the case in some aspects of personal injury lawsuits. As to holding a personal grievance against Boeing - yikes, no way. (Maybe naively, I'm proceeding on the basis that you're not starting an ad hominem here.) Standing, coattails?--I have idea what you're driving at, but to be safe, "no."
No point in asking for a legal opinion - you cannot make any because hypothetical, speculation, not being paid a retainer by me - about the likely effect this interpretation of a loophole in the current law will have elsewhere. This same type of loophole interpretation is what allows police to steal money and property under the pretext of Civil Asset Forfeiture and allows police to commit heinous actions and be protected by qualified immunity.
WR -There is no connection between the damages analysis and the issues extant with regard to qualified immunity and forfeiture. And the ruling by Judge Alonso isn't about a so-called "loophole."
---
I'll reiterate - the PACER terms of use appear to be charge for just making the inquiry in proportion to the size of the returned result. Charged for making the search. No need to deflect about downloading. You appear to agree that it is designed to seriously harm those without legal training - the ultimate paywall. What does a law degree cost? PACER is required to collect only enough to pay for its operation - instead it looks to be a piggy bank, charging far in excess of its operating costs and preventing non-legal trained people from learning about the legal system.
Psychophysiological entity
MechEngr
I don't think Boeing expected the full sequence of events - which is what brought down the aircraft. If it had, the AoA sensor would have carried a "catastrophic" label, which originally it did not.
At this point, who knew about MCAS? Some people in Boeing and the South American airline that had less than half a dozen lines about it in its pilot's handbook. I found this entry quite by chance and introduced it into the gargantuan PPRuNe pair of threads. Basically, the world did not know about MCAS until some time after the first crash. It might be said that Boeing was backwards in coming forwards with that vital information.
With respect, that must be an all-time simplification. There may have been a very different outcome if the other skipper hadn't been there. Just the psychological lightening of load by having him input his observations and thoughts - indeed, to the point of going for his own company's notes. All this must have been of considerable benefit. Yes, they were, in some manner, controlling the aircraft before settling into what must be one of the most illegal flights of the century. Then the write up. Annoying? I know what was annoying - the deaths that might have been avoided if the first captain had not been covering his own hind quarters while minimising a serious disruption of major symptoms. 'How can I write this up to justify carrying on? I know, we'll call the totally uncalled for movement of 47 feet of major flying control as . . . Annoying."
When was that almost new AoA sensor changed for an older refurbished unit from Florida? The first crash had a Sensor with the vane wildly misaligned with its shaft.
The level of chaos on that flight-deck can be compared with the previous day's flight, but I suggest the second flight, the first fatal, was a scenario that had Sully saying, 'That could have claimed me'.
As I say, Boeing was backwards in coming forward. How long was it before most of the operators in the world even knew what MCAS was? By my count, we're up to two separate instances of silence being deadly.
What Boeing expected to happen with MCAS did happen.
At this point, who knew about MCAS? Some people in Boeing and the South American airline that had less than half a dozen lines about it in its pilot's handbook. I found this entry quite by chance and introduced it into the gargantuan PPRuNe pair of threads. Basically, the world did not know about MCAS until some time after the first crash. It might be said that Boeing was backwards in coming forwards with that vital information.
The day before the Lion Air crash. Nearly textbook execution of trim problem handling, almost exactly the way the failure mode team expected. Same initial flight deviations, but no one died, nor did any appear to express they felt they might. The pilots wrote it up as annoying.
How did the exact same plane with the exact same problem go from controllable to uncontrolled in less than 24 hours? Training and attitude.
The level of chaos on that flight-deck can be compared with the previous day's flight, but I suggest the second flight, the first fatal, was a scenario that had Sully saying, 'That could have claimed me'.
That no one called for grounding the fleet after Lion Air is enough to tell me that no one thought MCAS was a problem.
When was that almost new AoA sensor changed for an older refurbished unit from Florida?
The second flight crashed because the Captain transferred control to the First Officer. Until that point the Captain had maintained pitch trim. The First Officer, for reasons unknown, allowed nearly 90 pounds of pitch trim force to build up.
Had he been all alone the Captain on the second Lion Air flight would not have crashed. As soon as he set up for landing and deployed the flaps, MCAS would have stopped. He managed to disengage/did not engage the autopilot and the autothrottle, according to the airspeed disagree and the stall warning. He managed to keep the plane in trim. and he felt comfortable enough to hand over the controls while he looked at the manual.
After analyzing what the First Officer did, it seemed clear the main human failure was not remembering the trim system had an off switch and that the plane should be trimmed for neutral force in level flight before using it.
Did Sully make that claim before or after ET-302? Recall that Capt. Sullenberger's own testimony a few years earlier essentially put the blame on Ethiopian for not having 1500+ hours in both seats, which he stated was a minimum requirement that made his own safe emergency landing possible. If it was his testimony after ET-302, recall that Ethiopian misrepresented what happened and claimed the pilots followed every step exactly in the correct order. The truth that they failed to respond correctly, even before MCAS was enabled, was hidden in the FDR trace released a year later. I expect his statements were from believing what Ethiopian claimed was true.
The question was - why was any airline unaware of the problem after Lion Air? The preliminary report was 100% sufficient to determine cause, mitigation in flight, and identifying sequence and symptoms. ET-302 wasn't because anyone was silent. Their own report indicates they were well aware of MCAS before the crash.
Knowing the name is irrelevant. Knowing the symptoms is sufficient to identify the needed procedures. There is evidence Ethiopian knew the name. There is no evidence they ever knew the symptoms or the procedures as delivered to them.