Boeing CEO and Board Chair Step Down Years Too Late

Four years ago, under the heading Boeing's Deadly Penny Pinching Stupidity, we wrote:

... Boeing corporation has only one aeronautical engineer on its board of directors, Dennis Muilenburg, who serves as President, Chairman, and Chief Operating Officer. With the exception of a couple of book-keepers, other board members appears to be of little more than decorative value, vanity board members, including such engineering notables as Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, and just-appointed Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN. ...

But, as we wrote later the same year:

... apparently Boeing's directors judged that one aeronautical engineer on the Board was one too many, so today they fired Engineer and CEO Muilenburg and announced that they will replace him with David Calhoun, an accountant currently the global head of private equity portfolio operations at Blackstone. In January, Boeing will appoint Lawrence Kellner, a real estate developer, as Board Chairman. Boeing Corp, RIP.

Now, after two Boeing aircraft crashes due to poorly written software and one near disaster due to the mid-flight blowout of an improperly installed door panel,  both accountant CEO Calhoun and real-estate developer Board Chairman Kellner are to step down in what has been described as "a broad management shake-up as the 737 Max crisis weighs on aerospace giant."

So will they hire folks with aeronautical engineering expertise to replace them? Just wonderin'.

Related: 
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/boeing-shares-tumble-after-nyt-whistle-blower-report-787-dreamliner-fuselage-flaws

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CanSpeccy: Boeing Got the Monkey Management Virus from Jack Welch's GE 

CanSpeccy: What's Wrong With Boeing's 737MAX Airliner?

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CanSpeccy: The Death of Great American Companies, No. 79: Boeing

Top Aerospace Engineer, Nikki Haley, Resigns From Board of Boeing Corporation

We have previously noted the extraordinary fact that Boeing Corporation's Board of Directors includes not a single engineer, aeronautical or otherwise. That fact must surely be an embarrassment to members of the Board now that the company's manifestly corrupt and useless management has become a matter of public knowledge. It is no surprise, therefore, that Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, former Governor of South Carolina, etc., etc., has had the wit to disembarrass herself by resigning from the Board of Directors on a supposed matter of principle, namely, her opposition to Boeing's request for a $60 billion publicly funded bailout. In her letter of resignation, Haley states:

I cannot support a move to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our company over others and relies on taxpayers to guarantee our financial position.

One wonders how soon it will be before the other, less politically savvy, members of the Board bail too. Perhaps Boeing's other female aeronautical genius, Caroline Kennedy, will be the next to go?

Robot submarine able to kill without human control

Source: New Scientist.

Uh uh! Look out World! See who's building this thing.
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CanSpeccy: Boeing: Building Planes Designed by Clowns Supervised By Monkeys
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The Russian Rocket Engine That Takes Americans into Space

The Russian-built RD 180 Rocket engine that powers America's
Shuttle replacement -- Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.

Boeing Corporation depends on Russia not only for the supply of rocket engines to power it's Space Shuttle replacement, the CST-100 Starliner, but also for titanium components for its aircraft manufacturing business. According to this Zero Hedge report, at least 40% of Russian titanium aircraft parts have been sold to Boeing in the last several years (Russia has since threatened to halt titanium exports to the US). This should surprise no one familiar with Boeing's management, with it's board of directors comprised of novelists, song writers, accountants, and female ex-diplomats, but not a single engineer.

Buy-the-Dip, No. 79: Boeing: Another Great Investment Opportunity

Boeing is another great opportunity in our series: Buy-the-Dip.

Trading at a small multiple of just under 50, this is a stock that'll be going places just as soon as Boeing gets its 737MAX certified to go places [re-certified, that is], as the following interview with CEO, David Calhoun, reveals.

CNBC: You believe in this airplane? Calhoun: Absolutely, absolutely ... CNBC: Why should people have confidence in the [737]MAX? Calhoun: If we didn't believe we were going to field an airplane that was safer than the safest demonstrated airplane that's out there today, we wouldn't do it. So says the accountant with no expertise in engineering, let alone aviation, but the author of the CD album "Day Drinkin'".

Seems like Calhoun must have had a few before the interview.

Anyone who knows anything about the problems with the 737MAX knows it's a fundamentally flawed aircraft, being inherently unstable and requiring a computer-controlled stabilization mechanism to keep it in level flight.

So even if the totally crap stabilization mechanism (MCAS, maneuvering characteristics Augmentation System, which is bullshit for Anti-Stall System or ASS) worked with total reliability, which it totally didn't, the plane would be vastly inferior in fundamental safety to any of a multitude of planes already out there.

Related:
CanSpeccy: Boeing: Building Planes Designed by Clowns Supervised By Monkeys

Boeing Got the Monkey Management Virus from Jack Welch's GE

Jim McNerney was President, CEO, and Chairman of Boeing from 2005 through 2015. He was Chairman in 2016. During a quarterly earnings conference call on 24 July 2014 with Boeing’s senior management he had this exchange with a reporter:

Bloomberg News: Jim, you have a birthday coming up next month. …Will you be at your desk, and has the Board approved you staying on past age 65? Jim McInerney, CEO: Yes, the heart will still be beating. The employees will still be cowering {laughing}. I’ll be working hard; there’s no end in sight.

As Fabius Maximus comments:

[McInerny] learned that workers are cattle while working from 1982 – 2001 as an executive at GE under an architect of modern corporate America – Jack Welch.  Under his leadership, Boeing decayed to a shell of the once-great aerospace giant. For this he was lavishly paid. He earned $80 million in 2013-2015 and retired with a $4 million for 15 years pension – plus uncountable other perks.

So now those giants of America's corporate leadership have shown the way, every ambitious American executive will be intently focused on looting the company at the expense of workers, shareholders and the mass of unfortunate victims who depend on the company's product or service.

Related:

CanSpeccy: Boeing: Building Planes Designed by Clowns Supervised By Monkeys

Way to Go: Foundering Boeing Corp. Replaces Aeronautical Engineer With An Accountant as CEO

Last June, writing of Boeing Corporations penny pinching stupidity, we  noted that:

... Boeing corporation has only one aeronautical engineer on its board of directors, Dennis Muilenburg, who serves as President, Chairman, and Chief Operating Officer. With the exception of a couple of book-keepers, other board members appears to be of little more than decorative value, vanity board members, including such engineering notables as Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, and just-appointed Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN. ...

But apparently Boeing's directors judged that one aeronautical engineer on the Board was one too many, so today they fired Muilenburg and announced that they will replace him with David Calhoun, currently the global head of private equity portfolio operations at Blackstone.

In January, Boeing will appoint Lawrence Kellner, a real estate developer, as Board Chairman.

Boeing Corp, RIP.

Related:

Yahoo: Boeing document dump shows 'disturbing' picture on 737 MAX: officialCanSpeccy: What's Wrong With Boeing's 737MAX Airliner?
CanSpeccy: Boeing's Deadly Penny-Pinching Stupidity
CanSpeccy: The Death of Great American Companies, No. 79: Boeing

Boeing's Deadly Penny-Pinching Stupidity

Boeing corporation has [had, now zero] only one aeronautical engineer on its board of directors, Dennis Muilenburg, who serves as President, Chairman, and Chief Operating Officer. With the exception of a couple of book-keepers, other board members appear to be of little more than decorative value, vanity board members, including such engineering notables as Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, and just appointed Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN.

Apparently Boeing's management, i.e., Mr. Muilenberg, doesn't give a damn about aircraft safety, only about saving a buck, a supposition confirmed by Bloomberg News, which reports that the defective software that brought down two of Boeing's newly introduced 737MAX airliners was written by immigrant subcontractors earning as little as $9 an hour. This at a time when the company was laying off experienced engineers.

Increasingly, according to Bloomberg, 

... the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India. In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd.occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max. The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”... Based on resumes posted on social media, HCL engineers helped develop and test the Max’s flight-display software, while employees from another Indian company, Cyient Ltd., handled software for flight-test equipment.

And there were other benefits to using incompetent Indian contractors.

Boeing’s cultivation of Indian companies appeared to pay other dividends. In recent years, it has won several orders for Indian military and commercial aircraft, such as a $22 billion one in January 2017 to supply SpiceJet Ltd. That order included 100 737-Max 8 jets and represented Boeing’s largest order ever from an Indian airline, a coup in a country dominated by Airbus.

Seemingly, the American drive to corporate monopolism isn't working well. Without competition, terminal stupidity is setting in. What to do? Break up the corrupt and increasingly useless behemoths and recreate the productive competitive free market economy that American capitalists have always said they believed in.

Related:
USA Today: Boeing's 'single point failure': Why was there no backup system on 737 Max jet?

Boeing's 737NG: How a Corrupt Precurement System Makes This Plane Liable to Break-Up

Related: 
The Hill: FBI joins criminal probe of Boeing 737 Max certification: report
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What's Wrong With Boeing's 737MAX Airliner?

Moon of Alabama provides a good summary of what is now believed to be the reason Boeing's 737MAX airliner is crash prone.

Four factors seem to be responsible.

Suboptimal design:

In 2010 Airbus decided to offer its A-320 with a New Engine Option (NEO) which uses less fuel. To counter the Airbus move Boeing had to follow up. The 737 would also get new engines for a more efficient flight and longer range. The new engines on the 737 MAX are bigger and needed to be placed a bit different than on the older version. That again changed the flight characteristics of the plane by giving it a nose up attitude.

The plane is low slung for easy access to the baggage hold, but with larger engine nacelles it was necessary to raise the top of the nacelles above the leading edge of the wing, thereby creating additional lift. Thus, whereas, in most aircraft, if the pilot takes his hand off the stick, the plane will continue in level flight, the 737MAX is inherently unstable and tends to go nose up, leading to a stall.

Deceptive marketing:

The new flight characteristic of the 737 MAX would have require a retraining of the pilots. But Boeing's marketing people had told their customers all along that the 737 MAX would not require extensive new training. Instead of expensive simulator training for the new type, experienced 737 pilots would only have to read some documentation about the changes between the old and the new versions. To make that viable, Boeing's engineers used a little trick. They added a "maneuver characteristics augmentation system" (MCAS) that pitches the nose of the plane down if a sensor detects a too high angle of attack that might lead to a stall. That made the flight characteristic of the new 737 version similar to the old one.

By calling the automated anti-stall system (ASS) the "Maneuver Characteristics Augmentation System" (MCAS) deliberately or otherwise deflected attention from the vital importance of that system.

A poorly designed engineering solution to the plane's inherent instability:

The 737 MAX has two flight control computers. Each is connected to only one of the two angle of attack sensors. During a flight only one of two computer runs the MCAS control. If it detects a too high angle of attack it trims the horizontal stabilizer down for some 10 seconds. It then waits for 5 seconds and reads the sensor again. If the sensor continues to show a too high angle of attack it again trims the stabilizer to pitch the plane's nose done. MCSA is independent of the autopilot. It is even active in manual flight. There is a procedure to deactivate it but it takes some time. One of the angle of attack sensors on the Indonesian flight was faulty. Unfortunately it was the one connected to the computer that ran the MCAS on that flight. Shortly after take off the sensor signaled a too high angle of attack even as the plane was flying in a normal climb. The MCAS engaged and put the planes nose down. The pilots reacted by disabling the autopilot and pulling the control stick back. The MCAS engaged again pitching the plane further down. The pilots again pulled the stick. This happened some 12 times in a row before the plane crashed into the sea. To implement a security relevant automatism that depends on only one sensor is extremely bad design. To have a flight control automatism engaged even when the pilot flies manually is also a bad choice. But the real criminality was that Boeing hid the feature.

Concealment of a Fundamental System Vulnerability:

With seeming insanity, Boeing failed to inform pilots of how the "solution" to the plane's tendency to stall worked, or might fail to work, or if necessary, might be shut off to allow the aircraft to be flown manually:

Neither the airlines that bought the planes nor the pilots who flew it were told about MCAS. They did not know that it exists. They were not aware of an automatic system that controlled the stabilizer even when the autopilot was off. They had no idea how it could be deactivated.

Boeing's best way forward would appear to be the resignation of the entire board of directors and their replacement by responsible people with relevant qualifications. Likewise, the top guys at the Federal Aviation Administration which was responsible for giving the plane a certificate of airworthiness should, but won't, go now.

Related: 
CanSpeccy:
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