Speaker 1: Yoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special
Speaker 1: of The Front Page, The Ends At Herald's daily news podcast.
Speaker 1: While the Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 1: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 1: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: New episodes will return on January thirteenth. It's safe to
Speaker 1: say that in recent years Boeing has gone through a
Speaker 1: patch of turbulence. In twenty twenty four alone, we saw
Speaker 1: a door plug blow off mid flight on an Alaska
Speaker 1: Airline's Boeing seven three seven Max nine in January, while
Speaker 1: closer to home, a Latame Airline's flight from Sydney to
Speaker 1: Auckland plunged mid air, injuring at least fifty passengers. In
Speaker 1: October twenty eighteen, Lion airflight six ' ten crashed into
Speaker 1: the Java Sea in Indonesia with one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: nine people on board. It was a Boeing seven three
Speaker 1: seven Max, and barely five months later, an Ethiopian Airlines
Speaker 1: Boeing Max aircraft crashed, killing one hundred and fifty seven people.
Speaker 1: One of those people was Graziela de Luis Yaponts, a
Speaker 1: United Nations interpreter. Her brother is MIT's Department of Aeronautics
Speaker 1: and Astronautics lecturer Javier de Luise. He served on the
Speaker 1: US Federal Aviation Administration's panel that reviewed Boeing's safety practices
Speaker 1: last year. We spoke to Haveavier in March about what's
Speaker 1: gone wrong and what should change at Boeing. The latest
Speaker 1: issue on the Latam flight is one in a series
Speaker 1: of issues that have popped up for Boeing in recent memory. Javier,
Speaker 1: what's going on here?
Speaker 2: Well, Solsey, I think it's important that we split the
Speaker 2: issues that come up into two buckets.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: The first bucket is the issues that arise from laws
Speaker 2: in the design, laws in the manufacturing, mistakes that are made,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. Among those issues would be things
Speaker 2: like the mcast system that crash the two planes five
Speaker 2: years ago, the problems with anti icing, and the engines
Speaker 2: that if it's left on too long, the engine that
Speaker 2: sells could crack. Those kinds of things, the mis drilled holes.
Speaker 2: Then there are the other ones that are sort of
Speaker 2: one of the things, you know, mistakes happen, and maintenance mistakes,
Speaker 2: happen because someone bumps into a switch or something like that,
Speaker 2: which is apparently what the last time thing was due to.
Speaker 3: And those, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Don't want to say that they're okay and that they're normal,
Speaker 2: but they're not as fundamentally problematic as the first kind.
Speaker 2: The first kind really shouldn't happen and when identified need
Speaker 2: to be corrected as soon as possible. The second kind, well,
Speaker 2: things are going to have happen. And we're now focused
Speaker 2: on anything having to do with Boeing and the Max
Speaker 2: and any Boeing airplane. Very spotlight is on, so we
Speaker 2: clearly are paying more attention to them. But airplanes run
Speaker 2: off runways all the time. There are hydraulic failures all
Speaker 2: the time. They're not supposed to happen, but when they
Speaker 2: do happen, if an airplane is properly designed, they should
Speaker 2: be able to deal with it, and for the most
Speaker 2: part they do. For the fundamental flawed ones that that's
Speaker 2: a different animal altogether.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I hope you don't mind me mentioning as well,
Speaker 1: But you lost a loved one in a Boeing incident,
Speaker 1: didn't you.
Speaker 2: Yes, my sister was on the Ethiopia crash for the
Speaker 2: Max five years ago. It was five years ago last
Speaker 2: Sunday Action, and you know, since then, I've sort of
Speaker 2: I've been working with a bunch of families that lost
Speaker 2: people on that flight to try to make sure that
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff doesn't happen again. And my background
Speaker 2: is I'm an aerospace engineer. I spent my career in
Speaker 2: aerospace engineer. I have a doctorate from am IT and
Speaker 2: here in Cambridge, and I've been trying to sort of
Speaker 2: help the families understand the technical side as much as
Speaker 2: I can, and also trying to win able. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to have input into how changes that are getting made
Speaker 2: in order to prevent this from happening. Just recently, I
Speaker 2: completed work on an FAA expert panel that was set
Speaker 2: up by Congress that went in and looked at Boeing's
Speaker 2: safety culture and the way that they are manufacturing airplanes
Speaker 2: and how they're being inspected. My fellow panels and I
Speaker 2: spent about a year looking at this, and we just
Speaker 2: submitted the report to Congress two weeks ago.
Speaker 4: Boeing's seven three seven Max production process has dozens of
Speaker 4: issues with quality control. That's according to the New York Times,
Speaker 4: reporting on Monday on an audit from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Speaker 4: The paper said the aerospace giant failed thirty three out
Speaker 4: of eighty nine product tests for the Max, including checks
Speaker 4: on the component that blew up the jets, known as
Speaker 4: a door plug.
Speaker 1: I mean, the report seems like it's highly critical of
Speaker 1: Boeing's safety culture and a number of fronts. Hey and
Speaker 1: found a lack of awareness of safety related metrics on
Speaker 1: kind of all levels of the organization. How did Boeing
Speaker 1: respond to that and to the panel's recommendations.
Speaker 3: Well, the FA administrator gave them ninety days to come
Speaker 3: up with the plan.
Speaker 2: They said they appreciate the work, you know, they said
Speaker 2: the thing that you would expect them to say. We'll
Speaker 2: have to see whether they implement the recommendations. I think
Speaker 2: the biggest recommendation that we had, or the biggest finding
Speaker 2: that we had, I should say, is that we saw
Speaker 2: a disconnect between the words that are being said by
Speaker 2: upper level Boeing management and what is being really perceived
Speaker 2: and believed at the ground level, at the worker level,
Speaker 2: at the engineer level, you know, they hear, yes, safety
Speaker 2: is our number one priorities, Safety's job one, and they
Speaker 2: say yeah, until we fall behind on the line and
Speaker 2: then they's just pushing on the door. They stay here, Oh,
Speaker 2: you should report things we want to hear about problems.
Speaker 2: You won't be punished.
Speaker 5: And then they.
Speaker 2: See, well, yes, but my buddy brought up an issue
Speaker 2: and now he's been let go. And those are the
Speaker 2: stories that we heard and talking to people and the
Speaker 2: surveys that we conducted. And that's problematic because you know,
Speaker 2: it's not words, it has to be actions.
Speaker 3: And the words are fine.
Speaker 2: They're being told safety's job one and report things that
Speaker 2: are wrong, et cetera, et cetera. But if if the
Speaker 2: people that work for you don't believe you, that's a
Speaker 2: real fundamental problem and that has to be addressed.
Speaker 1: In terms of safety measures with Boeing as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're essentially left by regulators to self police, right, so
Speaker 1: they get to kind of choose what their safety measures
Speaker 1: are and how they get up to scratch. I guess
Speaker 1: is that a flaw that's.
Speaker 3: Not quite correct.
Speaker 2: For decades, the FAA has sort of deputize, let's call
Speaker 2: it deputized BOI personnel to act on behalf of the
Speaker 2: FAA in the engineering, design and manufacturing process.
Speaker 3: And the reason that they do this is because the
Speaker 3: FA doesn't have enough people to do all this.
Speaker 2: They could obviously hire more, but you know there's federal
Speaker 2: budgets and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: So for decades this has been the way it's been done.
Speaker 2: The problem has been that over the last fifteen years
Speaker 2: or so, more and more functions have been delegated over
Speaker 2: to boying personnel, and that pendulum swung way way in
Speaker 2: that direction and the interest of you know, efficiency and competitiveness.
Speaker 3: And clearly during the development of the.
Speaker 2: MAX for example, that the FASIO reports that came out
Speaker 2: of Congress and the FAA investigations all showed that there
Speaker 2: was what we referred to as undue influence on these
Speaker 2: people that are supposed to be acting on the faas
Speaker 2: in other words, on the public's behalf. In other words,
Speaker 2: they were supposed to, you know, review a design and
Speaker 2: if they found a flaw in the design, they someone
Speaker 2: would come up and say, hey, you want don't you
Speaker 2: take a look at that again, and you know this
Speaker 2: is important. Maybe you can see it a little differently,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's the sort of pressure that was
Speaker 2: applied and that's obviously not good, and so now the
Speaker 2: pendulum is beginning to swing in the other direction.
Speaker 3: And we saw that there.
Speaker 2: Were improvements when compared to what it was prior to
Speaker 2: the MAX crashes. But yet still there was opportunity for
Speaker 2: retaliation when it came time for salary raises or rankings
Speaker 2: in your division to see, you know, if there were layoffs,
Speaker 2: who would get laid out first.
Speaker 3: For all those sorts of things, there was still an opportunity.
Speaker 2: For these deputized personnel to be retaliated against in case
Speaker 2: they made decisions and they made findings that went against
Speaker 2: Boyante's interests.
Speaker 6: New information in the death of Boeing whistle blower John Barnett,
Speaker 6: A close family friend of Barnett, says he predicted he
Speaker 6: might wind up dead.
Speaker 1: I think somebody didn't like what he had to say
Speaker 1: and wanted to shut him up.
Speaker 6: Jennifer knew he filed an extremely damaging complaint against Boeing.
Speaker 6: He says the aerospace giant retaliated against him when he
Speaker 6: blew the whistle on unsafe practices.
Speaker 2: So that's a problem, and that was one of our
Speaker 2: major findings in our report. So the regulations are set
Speaker 2: by the FAA. Boeing personnel have to are responsible for
Speaker 2: checking the analyses and the tests to make sure that
Speaker 2: those regulations are complied with.
Speaker 1: Isn't that something that's happened within the last fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Well, No, that deputization that I've been referring to has
Speaker 2: been around since the nineteen twenties. It was done more
Speaker 2: on an individual basis up until about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Up until about fifteen years ago, it was individuals at
Speaker 2: Boeing that we said, you you missed an engineer. You
Speaker 2: are going to now work for the FAA. Even though
Speaker 2: your paycheck's going to be from Boeing. You're going to
Speaker 2: talk to the FAA and you're going to report to
Speaker 2: the FAA. And that's the way it was. And about
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago it changed to be more organizational instead
Speaker 2: of individuals. It's the Boeing with organization within Boeing that
Speaker 2: is now responsible for doing things. And what the previous
Speaker 2: reports found after MAX crashes was that there are too
Speaker 2: many opportunities for mischief. There, there's too many opportunities for
Speaker 2: undue influence.
Speaker 3: And the law was.
Speaker 2: Changed to require the FAA to delegate less activities and
Speaker 2: to pull back somebody's functions and to split make more
Speaker 2: clear that the people that are working as designies as
Speaker 2: delegates for the fa are working for the FAA, not
Speaker 2: for Boeing. That has to be clear, and for the
Speaker 2: most part, our panel found that people understand that the
Speaker 2: problem was that there's still opportunities for retaliation and influence
Speaker 2: and those have to be cleaned up if the system's
Speaker 2: going to work, those have to be cleaned up. Now
Speaker 2: they're talking now about bringing in a third party, another
Speaker 2: organization to act as the people that would be checking
Speaker 2: the requirements and things like that, and that would obviously
Speaker 2: be better in terms of ensuring independence, but that doesn't
Speaker 2: happen overnight, and that's a long term process.
Speaker 1: Is part of the problem also that there's not much competition,
Speaker 1: only really two major airplane manufacturers. We've got Boeing and Airbus.
Speaker 1: So even if people are concerned with Boeing, I guess
Speaker 1: airlines don't easily have the option of changing who they
Speaker 1: work with. There's not that competitiveness to make a product
Speaker 1: that is elite.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: If you're starting up an airline, you go and try
Speaker 2: to buy an airbus, your delivery will be like five
Speaker 2: six years down the line. I mean, there is such
Speaker 2: a backlog in terms of manufacturing that there is no competition.
Speaker 2: You basically go to air Bus, go to Boeing, and
Speaker 2: you take what they give you. So if people wanted
Speaker 2: to steer away from one or the other, they would
Speaker 2: be looking at schedules that would be five, six, seven
Speaker 2: years in the future, and that's just not economically viable.
Speaker 2: So people go and buy what they can get, and
Speaker 2: they pretty much will sell any airplane that comes off
Speaker 2: the line because there's such a huge demand for airplanes
Speaker 2: in the post COVID era as the world opened up again.
Speaker 2: That's all we're seeing. But you know, Boeing has lost
Speaker 2: their lead, right They're no longer the leading commercial airplane
Speaker 2: maker in the world. It's now Airbus by quite a margin.
Speaker 2: And we'll see whether how long Going continues to hold
Speaker 2: the second place position because there are other competitors coming
Speaker 2: up to line.
Speaker 1: How is your experience losing your sister, I guess merged
Speaker 1: with your expertise in aeronautics. You mentioned before that you've
Speaker 1: kind of taken the role of explaining kind of the
Speaker 1: technicalities to the families, which I'm sure that they are
Speaker 1: very grateful for given the complexities of it and your
Speaker 1: experience and your expertise is quite an interesting juxtaposition in
Speaker 1: a sense, right, And has it guided how you go
Speaker 1: about your research into Boeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been quite difficult. I should say that I've
Speaker 2: tried to help the families, and initially that's what was
Speaker 2: my role.
Speaker 3: Since we started, we've been joined by several other engineers
Speaker 3: that used.
Speaker 2: To work for the FA, used to work for Warning,
Speaker 2: that are much more knowledgeable than me, and so they've
Speaker 2: really been great in helping us understand what's going on.
Speaker 2: But as far as I'm concerned, I often say that
Speaker 2: I'm sort of cursed with knowing a bit too much.
Speaker 2: I know how this stuff happened. I know how it
Speaker 2: should have happened. I can clearly see that there's no
Speaker 2: excuse for the kind of stuff that we saw on
Speaker 2: the Max or the kind of stuff that we're still
Speaker 2: seeing on the MAX. It seems like the first response
Speaker 2: whenever there's any engineering problem is to ask for an
Speaker 2: exemption from the rule, and that's not right. The first
Speaker 2: response when there's an engineering problem, there's a manufacturing problem,
Speaker 2: should be to fix it, not to say, oh, it's okay,
Speaker 2: it's just as safe as if we had complied with
Speaker 2: the rule. That really bugs me because FAA regulations, there's
Speaker 2: a saying that FAA regulations are written in blood. Someone died,
Speaker 2: some other people figured out why they died, and then
Speaker 2: we wrote rules so that no one dies again, and
Speaker 2: to not comply with the rules, and they keep asking
Speaker 2: for exemptions as an insult to the people that died
Speaker 2: and to the people that did all the work to
Speaker 2: find out what happened so that.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't happen again. So that really upsets me.
Speaker 2: Apart from the personal loss of losing my sister, that
Speaker 2: just really upsets me that that's the path that seems
Speaker 2: to be the preferred path for this company as it
Speaker 2: built there.
Speaker 1: And as you say, there's obviously manufacturing and safety faults
Speaker 1: within some of these instances. But going back to the
Speaker 1: Latam flight that happened here from Sydney to Auckland obviously
Speaker 1: plunged mid air, which would have been absolutely frightening for
Speaker 1: those passengers on board.
Speaker 5: Apparently the plane dropped over five hundred feet in an instant.
Speaker 5: It was almost like getting to the top of a
Speaker 5: roller coaster then you're headed down. At that point, I
Speaker 5: thought this is it. There was chaos going on all
Speaker 5: around us.
Speaker 2: And mister Jocko, when he was getting off the plane,
Speaker 2: he saw the pilot and he approached.
Speaker 3: The pilot and said what happened?
Speaker 4: And the pilot said to him, my gauge is just
Speaker 4: blacked out.
Speaker 2: I lost all of my ability to fly the plane.
Speaker 1: I now think it may have been. Yeah, you mentioned
Speaker 1: like a switch or something. I mean, I'm obviously not
Speaker 1: an aerospace engineer or I have any business in building airplanes,
Speaker 1: but I would kind of make sure that a switch
Speaker 1: like that couldn't be bumped.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And you bring up an excellent point, which is that
Speaker 2: sometimes when these sort of accidents happen, you know, you
Speaker 2: got to look for why did it happen? You know,
Speaker 2: why did four bolts get not put onto a door
Speaker 2: at the point back? Why did that happen? And you
Speaker 2: can say, well, a mistake was made, someone forgot to
Speaker 2: do it, But well, I would ask, as an engineer,
Speaker 2: I would ask, why are those bolts able to be
Speaker 2: removed from that door in the first place? Why aren't
Speaker 2: they captured? Why aren't they hanging there so that anybody
Speaker 2: that's doing it would clearly see that these four boats
Speaker 2: are not attached. Right, what you would just mention is
Speaker 2: the same thing. You would think that if a switch
Speaker 2: can be easily bumped, then the right answer isn't to
Speaker 2: say to the flight attendants of the pilots, don't bump
Speaker 2: the switch. The right answer is to move the switch,
Speaker 2: or put a cover on the switch, or do something
Speaker 2: to prevent somebody from bumping it. And that is the
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly preferred solution. It often happens to be the more
Speaker 2: expensive solution, which is why a lot of times when
Speaker 2: these things happen, all you get is a notice to
Speaker 2: airman or whatever, a notice that says, hey, don't bump
Speaker 2: the switch, and that's not right. It should be a
Speaker 2: fix that makes it impossible to bump.
Speaker 3: The search.
Speaker 1: And as part of the FAA's panel obviously you mentioned
Speaker 1: days Boeing has to kind of get it back together.
Speaker 1: What happens then do you go in and check what
Speaker 1: kind of processes they've done. I don't know what it's
Speaker 1: like in the US, but sometimes recommendations go out to
Speaker 1: say big companies here, and the recommendation might be, you know,
Speaker 1: to better enhance safety procedures, and then they go back
Speaker 1: in six months and see that there's been a training
Speaker 1: in place to better safety procedures, and they go, oh, well, tick,
Speaker 1: is that something that's likely to happen over there?
Speaker 2: That was actually one of our recommendations is that there'd
Speaker 2: be a periodic six month review of where they are
Speaker 2: and what they've done and whether they're implementing the changes
Speaker 2: that we recommend that.
Speaker 3: I don't think it'll be us that'll do it. I
Speaker 3: think it would be the FAA that will be doing.
Speaker 2: Our panel or sort of cease to exist when we
Speaker 2: submitted the report, but that was one of our recommendations
Speaker 2: that we're hoping will be followed.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, have youer? That's it for this
Speaker 1: episode of The Front Page. You can read more about
Speaker 1: today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co
Speaker 1: dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
Speaker 1: with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.