Boeing Fires CEO Dennis Muilenburg (go.com) 103
McGruber writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Boeing Corporation fired its Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) as the company struggles to contain the fallout of its biggest crisis in decades, caused by two fatal crashes and the subsequent grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner. Boeing said David Calhoun, a longtime Boeing director with deep ties to the aviation and private-equity industries, will become CEO on January 13.
"Regulators had criticized Mr. Muilenburg's efforts to reassure customers and the financial community that government approval of a fix for the MAX was coming soon -- optimism that repeatedly proved misplaced," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The new leadership team made it clear in public statements Monday that they won't get ahead of regulators in predicting the return to service of the 737 MAX after its grounding in March following twin crashes that claimed 346 lives."
"An engineer by training, Mr. Muilenburg appeared to often rely heavily on data and legal advice rather than diplomacy in formulating his response to the escalating crisis, and his approach sometimes exacerbated friction with customers and regulators. His relationship with FAA leaders deteriorated to the point that about two weeks ago agency chief Steve Dickson publicly called out the company's failures to provide complete and timely data supporting proposed MAX software fixes."
"Regulators had criticized Mr. Muilenburg's efforts to reassure customers and the financial community that government approval of a fix for the MAX was coming soon -- optimism that repeatedly proved misplaced," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The new leadership team made it clear in public statements Monday that they won't get ahead of regulators in predicting the return to service of the 737 MAX after its grounding in March following twin crashes that claimed 346 lives."
"An engineer by training, Mr. Muilenburg appeared to often rely heavily on data and legal advice rather than diplomacy in formulating his response to the escalating crisis, and his approach sometimes exacerbated friction with customers and regulators. His relationship with FAA leaders deteriorated to the point that about two weeks ago agency chief Steve Dickson publicly called out the company's failures to provide complete and timely data supporting proposed MAX software fixes."
Boeing (Score:5, Insightful)
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346 lives lost is about two hours worth of road traffic deaths.
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346 lives lost is about two hours worth of road traffic deaths.
There are 8760 hours in a year. There are about 40,000 traffic fatalities in America annually. So 346 lives lost is about 76 hours of traffic deaths.
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As unfair as it is, the hoops they've made SpaceX jump through have made Crew Dragon a better system, and they'll likely make a profit on it with Boeing out of the picture.
I predict Boeing will have a fatal launch before they get fired, sadly - there's plenty of corruption in government contracting.
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Arthur's talkng about the Boeing spaceflight test that failed and landed in NM....
Re:Boeing (Score:4, Insightful)
There were a lot of things about that mission that were dangerous. The upper stage exhausted its RCS thrusters, for one. Attitude control is kind of important and can easily result in dead astronauts. Failing to make the right orbit is also dangerous since it can leave you either reentering right away and either burning up or landing where you don't want to, or ending up on an orbit where it's difficult to avoid one of those two outcomes.
It also exposed some serious flaws in Boeing's procedures. It was a failed mission, no question, no matter how Boeing would like to spin it. And for a really stupid reason.
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It was a failed mission, no question, no matter how Boeing would like to spin it. And for a really stupid reason.
Theoretically, of course, one learns more from a failure than from a success. BRMV (Boing's Results May Vary).
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Maybe... it depends on what kind of failure it was. Hopefully Boeing learned a lot. It seems the error on this one was pure software: the guidance system called the wrong clock API. So Boeing learned that having two mission clocks isn't a great idea, and that their APIs and simulations have some issues. They did not learn whether docking with the station actually works, but apparently their Snoopy doll does indeed float in microgravity.
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...but apparently their Snoopy doll does indeed float in microgravity.
As long as Snoopy is good with it, I'm good with it.
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> They simply failed to reach the proper orbit
> but there where a lot of successes.
AC from Boeing has joined the chat...
Boeing was supposed to certify for human rating on paper and not require extensive article flight testing, unlike SpaceX.
This means the entire Boeing system is fucked and can't be trusted. Back to the drawing board.
How very disappointing - the US needs multiple vehicle platforms, for operational redundancy.
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Same project managers as the 737MAX, I take it?
All better now... (Score:5, Funny)
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We will know it's real when directors start resigning.
Re:All better now... (Score:5, Insightful)
But he has ties to venture capital! That alone says that he'll be very, very quick to deliver gains to shareholders (for a quarter or two).
2020 headline: "Boeing to spin off R&D and production to a group of Chinese investors; company PR reps cite a shift in focus focus to integrated services, real estate, and financial services"
2021 headline: "Boeing, the Iconic American company is no more; due to unforeseen market shifts and heightened overseas competition"
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Highly unlikely. Boeing is kept afloat by the American military.
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The difference is that an offroad vehicle was simple enough to be a commodity and the USA has several vehicle manufacturers able to do it. Boeing, on the other hand, is the last US manufacturer of large aircraft.
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More importantly Boeing is one of few companies making jet fighters for the US and the US government will want to keep the competition going between companies and not have information about their military planes go to China.
However, if plans about the F-35 did happen leak to China it could slow down development of their stealth fighter for years.
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Actually, Jeep the brand came after Jeep the vehicle, and prior to that the term "jeep" was a generic term for off-road utility vehicles before it got associated with the Willys MB. Willys being the actual company that made the original "Jeep" - well, a bit more than half of them. The other half was made by Ford where it was known as the Ford GPW. Though in practice, you really have to know what to look for to tell a Willys MB apart from a Ford GPW since they are essentially identical as they were built
About Frelling Time (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately he'll probably go out with a golden parachute, unlike all the assembly line workers whose jobs are going to disappear becauas of his incompetence.
Re:About Frelling Time (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately he'll probably go out with a golden parachute...
...with a specially installed Manuevering Characteristics Augmentation System to operate the ripcord.
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Didn't your sig used to read, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like the back of a skull" ? Someone had that, a very long time ago.
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Why wouldn't he. Have you seen their stock value throughout his tenure? He's made them all massive money and while none of this is great Boeing isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
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Stock price hasn't reflected actual value of a company nor its long-term outlook for many, many years.
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"Unfortunately he'll probably go out with a golden parachute,"
I guess he'll find out that gold doesn't make a good parachute, whether you're jumping out pf a Starliner, or a 737MAX.
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Let’s not forget how many net orders Boeing has amassed this year.
-84.
Yup, that’s right, so far for 2019 Boding has had 84 more cancellations than it has had in orders.
Meanwhile, Airbus will end the year with more than 900 net orders.
That’s how bad this Boeing board and leadership has been.
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On the other hand, they also now have 400 aircraft built that no one will take delivery on, an inventory worth maybe $50 billion. Their entire order catalog is over 5000 planes worth more than half a trillion dollars. And airlines with the current grounded fleet of 500 planes are furious that Boeing has been lying to them about when those planes might fly again and are readying lawsuits for billions of dollars for the revenue they have lost - which they could have trimmed if they knew that the plane might n
Re: About Frelling Time (Score:2)
And here no one ever thought that anyone would ever beat Ford with their 1-2 punch of the Edsel and the Pinto.
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The planes are perfectly flyable. They just have to take MCAS out and train the pilots because it handles differently than the old 787. It will take time and money. If they had started after the second crash a large number of the planes would be flying now instead of waiting for an MCAS update.
Of course it would need a rebranding. Introducing the Boeing 788-Lite, now 100% MCAS free!
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If they do that it will need recertification of all the pilots (and I think the plane as well), so if they remove the MCAS then they've removed the entire justification for reusing the 737 airframe and would have been better off producing a brand new aircraft.
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Actually, without MCAS there’s a real fear that the MAX would not meet stability requirements under FAA rules, and hence not be certifiable.
And the problem isn’t just about training, it’s about pilots being able to move from the NG and MAX within a single fleet - having a mixed fleet adds huge problems for airlines if the pilots need to be certified on each subtype, hence the push for making it NG compatible in the first place.
Relying on data and legal advice? (Score:3, Funny)
What a terrible person.
Re:Relying on data and legal advice? (Score:4)
I think TFA was being kind. The real issue is he took his eye off the ball. Otherwise, as an engineer he would have seen the red flags and made them fix the thing before the crashes. Even after the first crash, he didn't care to dig in to things a bit to prevent another one. If he had, he might have realized that the recovery procedure for runaway trim might be easier said than done.
I think he must have been storing his engineering skills in the same dusty box he kept diplomacy skills in.
So to be more specific, he relied on legal advice and financial data, but not an in depth analysis of either.
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Otherwise, as an engineer he would have seen the red flags and made them fix the thing before the crashes.
Boeing screwed up but is not solely to blame.
Airlines have tons of 737-certified pilots. Training them for a different type certificate is expensive. Therefore, they went to Boeing and said "make us a plane that will be as efficient and cost-effective as a totally new plane, but that won't require us to retrain our pilots who are certified on the old plane." Boeing did that, making several engineering decisions that ended up needing MCAS to make the whole thing work. Airlines made it clear they wouldn't
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Boeing should bite the bullet and do what Airbus has done, go fly by wire for the entire line and standardize the cockpit and controls of the planes so that the pilots can fly the entire like with little retraining like they can with Airbus planes. 737 is a dead end anyway so it has to happen and be replaced by a new clean sheet anyway to keep up with Airbus's innovative A320 line. They should have done that years ago. But it would take a decade for the 737 replacement to be ready so 737 Max has to be reap
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Airlines made it clear they wouldn't buy any plane that required retraining.
Not buying this story as packaged. What were they going to do instead, buy the competing Airbus product?
They undoubtedly preferred no retraining, and Boeing no doubt touted "no retraining required!" in their sales pitch but to claim the airlines forced them to do it is ridiculous. And, even with MCAS, it was solely Boeing's decision to make two sensors an extra cost (profit) option, and to short-cut the testing process. They have no excuse for not telling the airlines - "this what is required to deliver wha
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Not buying this story as packaged. What were they going to do instead, buy the competing Airbus product?
Given how hard Airbus was pushing at the time, yes, that's exactly what they threatened to do. You forget (or are perhaps otherwise unaware) what was going on between Airbus and Boeing at the time. Boeing ruled the roost since the dawn of the jet age, having acquired, marginalized, or bankrupted pretty much all the competition. Airbus was a rude surprise to Boeing and had momentum enough to scare Boeing pretty badly.
Now if it had really come down to Boeing making a plane that required type re-certificati
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I doubt the airlines made any such demand. More likely, Boeing thought to itself, it would give them a big advantage over Airbus if they could provide a plane with similar capabilities to the Airbus offering but no pilot retraining required.
You can't blame the airlines for buying the thing Boeing offered. Even if the airlines DID ask, it was on Boeing to either meet the request safely or say it couldn't be done. For that matter, it probably COULD have been done safely if Boeing had put proper effort in to i
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"Hey Boeing, we're looking to replace our aging 737 fleet. Airbus has a really nice offering we're strongly considering. Pity you can't make one just as good but would allow us to use our huge number of 737 pilots without retraining."
That's pretty much the gist of what happened. Boeing sales isn't run by fools. They knew if they made a 737 successor that didn't have a huge, obvious advantage over Airbus that airlines would waver. Boeing would sell some, Airbus would sell some to be sure, but that formu
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In any event, it was on Boeing to either make that work safely or say they couldn't. In fact, they probably could have made it safe but didn't.
Anyone making anything would love to figure a way to make it cheap (and profitable) and most buyers want that (as long as it's safe). That's the nature of markets in general. Only a few are willing to put cheap toxic substitutes in baby formula or make airliners that crash themselves while telling the customers it's safe.
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The FAA has no choice any longer, they don't have anyone left who could look at the changes and say, "This is a new aircraft, you have to recertify." All of those positions were eliminated by Congress when the Libertardians took over the Republican party. The new rules say that the FAA has to take the company's declarations at face value, they didn't have any real choice.
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Not sure where they got the "relying on data" part from. There didn't seem to be much of that. Legal advice I believe.
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Not sure where they got the "relying on data" part from. There didn't seem to be much of that. Legal advice I believe.
Yep. From yesterday's New York Times story:
About two weeks before Mr. Muilenburg testified in front of Congress for the first time, the company disclosed to lawmakers instant messages from 2016 in which a Boeing pilot complained that the system known as MCAS, which was new to the plane, was acting unpredictably in a flight simulator. Boeing discovered the instant messages in January, but Mr. Muilenburg did not read them at the time, instead telling the company’s legal team to handle them.
Because legal teams are so good at fixing defective planes.
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The only problem is that the data he relied on was from a failed sensor which did not have a redundant backup.
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As I said before, for me the biggest error made by the CEO was when just after the second crash he gave a press conference saying 'our planes are safe'.
So, this is the guy who got the preliminary report after having 2 brand new planes fall out of the sky - correction: wrestled control away from the pilot and subsequently bore themselves into the ground - and said "What is wrong with that? That seems perfectly ok"
And I'm quite sure he did that based on legal advice...
Appearances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Appearances... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The question is, will this new CEO immediately start working through the entire chain of thugs that enabled this tragedy to happen, or is he just another thug? Personally, I'm betting on the latter.
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Nothing will change so long as we value MBAs above engineers.
Exactly that!
Re:Appearances... (Score:4, Interesting)
In contrast, Airbus has 4 engineers on its board of 12. That’s not to say that Airbus hasn’t had some whoppers of issues in the past, but they have worked through them and have a decent product line now (one which is beating Boeing in several areas).
Re: Appearances... (Score:1)
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IIRC the issue wasn't the cost of the devices and software, it was that a system with redundancy and so on would be classified differently and would trigger a bunch of time and money intensive testing and recertification, both plane and pilots possibly.
Not saying that would have been a bad thing but (again IIRC) it seems like the rules actually weighed against implementing a better solution.
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IIRC the issue wasn't the cost of the devices and software, it was that a system with redundancy and so on would be classified differently and would trigger a bunch of time and money intensive testing and recertification, both plane and pilots possibly.
Not saying that would have been a bad thing but (again IIRC) it seems like the rules actually weighed against implementing a better solution.
It's almost like the rules are there for a reason.
The plane should have been recertified. I know that in this day and age, regulations are really bad, and the CFO needs the final say - well, this disaster has bean counter overlord control written all over it.
How much money has that made Boeing?
And there is an old saying about Speeding tickets. If someone gets their first speeding ticket, is it the first time they ever drove abouv the speed limit? Not bloody likely.
Which is why I'll bet there are al
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I will, if they ever get recertified. 787s and 777s now, might be a good idea to avoid those.
Re:Well.. (Score:4, Interesting)
It’s tragic to see what was such a great company, who made great airplanes has ended up such a clusterfuck. The last time I travelled, the outbound flight was an A320, and the return in the previous model 737, it was immediately obvious the 737 was a far inferior aircraft in every way.
If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going.
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It’s tragic to see what was such a great company, who made great airplanes has ended up such a clusterfuck. The last time I travelled, the outbound flight was an A320, and the return in the previous model 737, it was immediately obvious the 737 was a far inferior aircraft in every way. If it’s Boeing, I ain’t going.
In all things the way we run things - the bean counters take over, and run huge companies into the ground.
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How so? They are basically the only decent Boeing planes.
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The 737 MAX has been under intense scrutiny. There won't be any Boeing planes in the last twenty years that have been certified as carefully.
Re: Well.. (Score:2)
The airframe is 1950s technology with a bit of fresh paint on it. It is not as strong than more modern aircraft and has fewer redundant systems. The 777 was the first truly modern Boeing airplane.
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The plane would be impossible to recertify. It is built to the 1950s standards. Its fuselage is not strong enough for a modern certificate and it doesn't have overwing slides. Instead in an emergency the passengers are supposed to slide over extended flaps. Only through grandfathering it was possible to release the 737max.
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Although - I am flattered. Now off to Youtube comments with you.
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Recertification was an issue, sort of. The FAA doesn't really have people on staff any longer competent to know if recertification is actually required, Boeing probably could have slipped that by them. It would have been a major expense for (at least) three reasons. First, aircraft wiring harnesses are incredibly expensive to design, Boeing wrote an entirely new software program to design them for the 787 (back when there were still competent people in management). They're almost as expensive to install
It's about culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Posting AC on purpose...
It's not about Muilenburg specifically. When you create a low-ball, cost-centric culture, it infests the entire operation - people who go along get promoted, people who don't get shunted aside, and almost everybody picks up on it. It's a cancer on the organization. They can put an engineer back in charge of it, but it won't make any difference for the foreseeable future. because everyone left is still geared to doing it half-assed. I don't even know if it is soluble without collapsing the entire enterprise and building it back up.
Re: It's about culture (Score:1)
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I've called it 'The MBA Disease', and it's infected the majority of the country's manufacturers.
About Focking Time (Score:1)
It's about time his ass walks. He repeatedly under-sold the problems as they were revealed to the public, and the likely return-to-air estimates. No matter what was found, it was always salesy happy talk. You can't bullshit the public and shareholders forever. He exceeded his quota of Mulligans.
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You can't bullshit the public and shareholders forever. He exceeded his quota of Mulligans
An Elon says what?
FAA folks should be fired too (Score:5, Insightful)
The FAA is equally culpable. All of the government folks that should have but failed to stop this deathtrap should be fired too.
Re:FAA folks should be fired too (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately all the folks that could have stopped this mess were laid off long ago. Newt Gingrich's moment of brilliance was when he realized that he didn't have to do away with the FAA, EPA, FDA, IRS, etc. if he made their enforcement division a separate budget line item. Then they could squeeze that to death and get the desired effect. Once upon a time the FAA had people on staff who could test and examine aircraft systems, but they were all laid off because of the budget cuts and the organization is in the position that the only thing it can do is take the manufacturer's word that all the testing is adequate.
After all, how are you going to convince people that the government is broken if you don't break it first?
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FAA should be mostly funded by a certification fee paid by Boeing, other manufacturers, airlines, ticket surcharges, . We should not ask a taxpayer who might never fly an airplane to cover costs relating to operating them.
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We should not ask a taxpayer who might never fly an airplane to cover costs relating to operating them.
Ever buy anything from Amazon, or get something delivered by FedEx/UPS or even the USPS? Then you have benefited from an airplane. This may shock you, but hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds of mail (both international and domestic) flies on US commercial passenger planes each day (I should know, I've loaded plenty of it myself in past jobs-both by hand in narrowbody cargo bins and in cans to be loaded into widebodies).
That's the amazing thing about society and civilization: even though you
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The problem isn't so much having to keep incompetents as discouraging the competent from staying. When you allow political appointees to manage engineers and lawyers to set their budgets you've doomed an organization.
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The problem is that bad people tend to rise to the top in both government and private companies. Everything is done for the worst reasons possible. In modern companies almost no one gives a fuck if the product or service is actually any good as long as they are making money and in government very few fucks are given in general about anything. This Boeing situation is a perfect example of the failure of both government and private companies. Our species needs to come up with better ways to work together towa
Crucial Reading for the change in Boeing culture (Score:5, Informative)
https://harpers.org/archive/20... [harpers.org] ...while it's a longer history of military procurement since Eisenhower, it's only six pages long, and Boeing today is kind of the in-conclusion part of the story.
The merger with Mc-Doug made the military side of Boeing's culture take over the civilian side; now we all get to see what gets foisted on the military. Jim Burton's "The Pentagon Wars", to, is back in print - about having to fight major political battles to get products even tested, to keep the Bradley from being a death trap. It's a cover-up culture.
Excellent comment: Mod up. (Score:2)
Wow! $406 BILLION !!! (Score:2)
"The most expensive weapons program in history at a projected cost of $406 billion, the F-35 initially carried a radar whose frequent freezing required the pilot to regularly switch it on and off. While the radar problem was eventually corrected, the Air Force version of the plane still features an unacceptably inaccurate gun that remains to be fixed, though the Air Force claims to be working on it."
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Well, that article says about the 737 that it had an impressive safety record since 1967. That is definitely not the case. The 737 has been plagued by problems that killed people, like the rudder hardover. The 737 max also wasn't the first 737 version that killed people because of its half-arsed automation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Well, that article says about the 737 that it had an impressive safety record since 1967. That is definitely not the case. The 737 has been plagued by problems that killed people, like the rudder hardover. The 737 max also wasn't the first 737 version that killed people because of its half-arsed automation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Here's a nice website:
http://www.airsafe.com/events/... [airsafe.com]
Combined over all models of the 737, the fatal crash rate per million flights is .23 (and that includes the over 3.0 rate for the MAX-the newer non-MAX versions (the NG version)have a rate of .06) There are 16 types with fatal crash rates higher than the 737, and only 8 lower (of the ones that have had fatal crashes). If you look at just the 737NG then the only ones safer are the Embraer E170/190 (.03) at and 747-400(also at .06). Keep in mind also t
Re: Crucial Reading for the change in Boeing cultu (Score:2)
The fatal crash rate doesn't really say much about the merit of an airplane family because you don't see the reason for the fatal crash. It might have been insufficient maintenance, a terrorist strike or a pilot error, yet it still, for some reason, counts against the aircraft.
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The fatal crash rate doesn't really say much about the merit of an airplane family because you don't see the reason for the fatal crash. It might have been insufficient maintenance, a terrorist strike or a pilot error, yet it still, for some reason, counts against the aircraft.
That site isn't just crash rate, though. Those statistics include things like the fairly recent issue with the Southwest 737 with the uncontained engine failure resulting in a passenger getting partially sucked out of the aircraft and dying from hitting her head on the fuselage. And it looks like it includes hijackings bombings as well (but excludes cases where no passengers died).
Engineer gets replaced with a bean counter (Score:2)
Engineer gets replaced with a bean counter. Looks like the board is considering Boeing a write-off at this point, and are setting things up to milk it util it dies without much innovation or investment. I get that heads had to roll, but you don't put a fucking bean counter in charge of something as technologically complex as Boeing. That's exactly what Boeing did with 737MAX itself: they wanted to goose the profits so they let the bean counters tell the engineers what to do.
The power of positive lying (Score:5, Insightful)
Boeings culture has to change (Score:2)
Giving CEOs and management stock option and appointing MBA and political types to the board is the root cause of the problems. What needs to happen is a restructuring of boeing including elimination of golden parachutes, and also changing the structure of the board so it is say 40% engineer, 35% blue collar, 10% marketing and finance. More regulation from the FAA wont fix these core cultural problems at Boeing, just overstress the abused workers.
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Once upon a time managers rose up through the ranks, by the time one reached the Ex-suites they had at least some idea what their various underlings were doing. Even Henry Ford made Esdel work on the assembly line for a year before letting him into management (and complained about having to pay his union dues.) Now executives are interchangeable, airline execs can run car companies, bankers can manage agricultural conglomerates.
KC-46 is dead in the water. (Score:1)
Earlier this year the USAF told Boeing to not only stop delivery after only 19 tankers were delivered, but it also told Boeing to toss the current refueling design and start over, completely. As currently delivered the KC-46 cannot safely refuel, cannot carry cargo safely and cannot carry personnel safely. As a third generation Boeing employee this is mind blowingly BAD. So far Boeing has done a rather good job of keeping this complete FUBAR out of the press, mostly.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-w... [thedrive.com]
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Is that the one that Airbus originally won the competition for, and was going to build in the US, but Boeing filed a complaint about the bidding process? Airbus didn't bid in the second competition because it was basically aimed at Boeing.
His relationship with FAA leaders ... (Score:3)
His relationship with FAA leaders deteriorated to the point that about two weeks ago agency chief Steve Dickson publicly called out the company's failures to provide complete and timely data supporting proposed MAX software fixes.
Considering that the FAA these days has devolved into an institution dedicated to helping the aviation industry screw over the public, that truly takes some doing.
Wait until they get serious... (Score:2)
and change their logo!
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If they do that they might even create a new Mission and Vision Statement!
Boeing's self-inflicted misery (Score:2)
I watched this happen, in realtime, at Boeing from 2000 to 2008. I'm a 3rd generation Boeing employee, and Ex-USAF Weapons Systems Specialist, jet fuel runs through my veins. It is slow torture watching Boeing self-destruct. But that's exactly what it is doing.
Now we have safety/quality issues on the following:
737NG
Engine safety blankets missing. Still not fixed on over 7,000 in-service 737NG's. These blankets are made of kevlar and other materials and are designed to stop an engine blade that breaks free f
AMD vs Intel (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]