Boeing came close to losing its Starliner crew capsule

Boeing's competence seems to be eroding. I hope the new CEO can turn
it around. Perhaps Boeing's move of engineering staff to Chicago was
a poor decision. Such a financial-based decision was a mistake, and
should be corrected by moving headquarters out of the city that closed
Meigs Field, and back to Washington state. Perhaps there are more
important considerations than the bottom line in aviation decisions...
But capitalism appears blind to everything but money. Darwinism
teaches harsh lessons. Boeing will either learn that safety
supercedes money, or go extinct. And these are the guys who are
foisting NextGen ATC on an unsuspecting flying public. What could go
wrong???

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https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/...ware-glitches/

Software Glitches
Russ Niles
February 7, 20207

Boeing came close to losing its Starliner crew capsule during the
abortive test flight in December in which the spacecraft failed to
reach the correct orbit. A software-related timing issue caused that
problem but another software glitch almost sent the vehicle tumbling
out of control after it had reached orbit. Had engineers not caught
the second error while the Starliner was in orbit, it would have fired
the wrong thrusters as part of the re-entry sequence and triggered a
“catastrophic” loss of control, a meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety
Advisory Panel revealed on Thursday. Once the issue was fixed, Boeing
was able to bring the spacecraft to a soft landing in the New Mexico
desert.

“While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone
uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and
uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit,
with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure,” panel
member Paul Hill reported in the meeting. Boeing was supposed to start
manned flights after one test flight but it says its now budgeting
$410 million for a redo of the December miscue. The budget also
includes the cost to troubleshoot the problems and fix them.
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On Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 8:12:50 AM UTC-6, Larry Dighera wrote:
Boeing's competence seems to be eroding. I hope the new CEO can turn
it around. Perhaps Boeing's move of engineering staff to Chicago was
a poor decision. Such a financial-based decision was a mistake, and


Boeing has ZERO eng. staff in Chicago, its all the corporate MBA type HQ.
The closest engineers are in STL at the old McDon. Doug. Plant.

You can thank the outsourcing of software to $9/hour foreigners for all the sw flubs, including 737 Max.. Corporate MBAs at their worst.

On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 17:00:43 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at 8:12:50 AM UTC-6, Larry Dighera wrote:
Boeing's competence seems to be eroding. I hope the new CEO can turn
it around. Perhaps Boeing's move of engineering staff to Chicago was
a poor decision. Such a financial-based decision was a mistake, and


Boeing has ZERO eng. staff in Chicago, its all the corporate MBA type HQ.
The closest engineers are in STL at the old McDon. Doug. Plant.

You can thank the outsourcing of software to $9/hour foreigners for all the sw flubs, including 737 Max.. Corporate MBAs at their worst.

I don't pretend to know, but it seems to me that it was not so much
the system software coders who are to blame, but rather the system
designers that failed to anticipate the consequences of sensor
malfunction in their new systems.

I heard the core issue that resulted in the 737 Max disasters/fiasco
was the FAA granting Boeing personnel the authority to inspect/certify
their own product(s?). At any rate, it was Boeing's dubious decision
that additional crew training in the MAX was not required despite
system changes, which had nothing to do with foreign labor as far as I
know.

Whenever safety is put in the hands of accountants, much to their
chagrin the results of their cost-cutting shortsightedness ultimately
results in higher expenses, not savings. But Capitalistic
competitiveness demands that a firm adopt their competitors'
questionable cost-cutting practices or be priced out of the market,
albeit ultimately temporarily...