After a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crashed in Indonesia, it turned out that the accident was probably caused by the failure to train pilots in a new automated piloting protocol. But rather than ground the planes immediately, American officials waited. Then another Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed, probably for the same reason, this time in Ethiopia. Again, the U.S. waited, becoming one of the last countries to deny the planes permission to fly. Why didn’t we put safety first? Because profits matter more than people.
Under Capitalism, Expensive Equipment is Always, Unlike People, Innocent Until Proven Guilty
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I used to work in Aerospace – we engineers thought we deserved more money, starting making noises about unions and all. I read two official company announcements within a week of each other, one telling the engineers that their salaries were ‘competitive’ with other aero companies, the second saying that they had to pay top dollar to attract the best executives in the country.
Quiz time – which plane would you rather fly on:
A) Designed by the best-paid engineers
B) Built by the best-paid mechanics
C) Neither of the above by the best-paid executives
On another guilty topic, the Supreme Court recently done a good thing (no, really) They made it harder for the cops to take your stuff. Say you’re busted for selling drugs and they take your car. They figure it was bought with drug profits, or used to transport drugs or maybe someone smoked a joint in it once.
They then KEEP your car, even if they can’t prove you guilty – let alone proving that the car is guilty of any of the above. The local DARE fanatics have a painted up Corvette they acquired in just that manner. How do they know the ‘vette was bought with drug profits rather than the salary from the owner’s day job? Maybe his microwave was bought with drug profits, but it’s more fun to drive around in a ‘vette.
This seems to be Boeing’s “full-dress” implementation/experimentation of robotic pilot systems, which appear to need further work, thus presumably requiring more dead human guinea pigs.
Ted, safety is an optional feature, which comes at extra cost, as per this New York Times article….
Henri