NTSB: Boeing “unable to find the records documenting” repair work on 737 Max 9.
Who had “Boeing leverages their too-big-to-fail status to cover up gross negligence and murder” on their worst timeline bingo card?
Goddamnit! I had Lockheed for murder and Raytheon for gross negligence
So if you don’t have any records then you can’t prove it was done properly and the assumption should be on the fault of Boeing.
Not how it works. They are innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt, that they are guilty. Not having a recording doesn’t make them guilty. The recording itself though, probably would.
But that isn’t the case here. The FAA is very clear, you must have the documents or you are in the wrong. That is it. You are only innocent by having the documents. To pass off a plane are good but not have its documents very clearly puts them guilty. There is no gray area here. The FAA and NTSB are very clear about this and who is at fault. When planes change hands or get work done, everything must be documented or it never happened. To then sell a plane and claim it was up to any spec, but without it being documented, then it isn’t up to spec.
The only way to prove they are innocent is to have those documents. The documents were audited, they didn’t have them, so they are being charged. They have been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that they did not have the required documents, otherwise there would have been no charges. The only way to prove their innocents is to show the documents that they failed to show in the audit, that they didn’t have, that lead to the charges. The reasonable doubt was already established when they failed the audit.
People who say “innocent until proven guilty” have never had to work in a regulated industry. You have to have all your licenses and documentation available for inspection at all times.
Even barbers and restaurants have these requirements. No, you can’t just say “it’s around here somewhere”. You need to know where it is.
Nationalize Boeing
That’s not their way, you must respect local culture.
The way over there is to give big moneys to Boeing, in this case ‘for quality assurance’, but pretend to forget to attach meaningful strings. Then Boeing must use all of that money for stock buybacks, as custom dictates. Anything other than that would be considered impolite. As a further sign of respect and gratitude Boeing can also fire a few % of their workforce.
I can’t speak for their specific regulations, but setting that data retention to only 24 hours because you don’t want to have evidence of culpability stored for a long time is a good way to go.
As someone who works in aircraft maintenance, I am actually shocked by this. Forget the video footage, that’s just a cheap-assed commercial camera somewhere in the rafters. But the paperwork?
As a repair station, we have to document every single step of every single task. If a mechanic does it, he signs that he has done it and an inspector checks and countersigns that he has done it correctly. For a single aircraft input, this is upwards of 50,000 signed task steps. We have to hand all that data to the customer when it is complete, and also keep it for a minimum of 7 years for most stuff, some things in perpetuity.
If Boeing couldn’t provide the exact names and dates involved within a 5 minute search, then someone has already found it and destroyed it.
