I think MCAS was one of those organizational failures. I could see myself implementing something like that. I imagine the conversation would go a little like this:
"We need to replicate the pitch performance of the 737-800. These engines pitch the plane up when accelerating and it messes up go-arounds."
"What if we have the computer just pitch down to compensate? We know the angle of attack and the engine thrust output."
<implements>
Meanwhile in another conference room:
"United is telling us that Airbus is giving them an A321 for 10% less than us. What can we cut?"
"No regulation requires us to have 3 angle of attack sensors. We could get by with 1 and stick it on the Minimum Equipment List if it fails."
"That sounds great."
Then the 1 angle of attack sensor fails the system that was designed for 3. Was it the engineer who agreed to hack 737-800 handling emulation onto the 737 MAX that failed here? Was it the engineer that agreed that the AoA sensors didn't need to be redundant, perhaps before MCAS was even invented?
These complex failures are rarely the result of one individual failing. Everyone did their job; the business saved United 10% (I actually have no idea who their launch customer was), the engineer saved thousands of pilots from being pulled off the line for re-training. But combined, it was a tragedy. Ultimately, it's the organization and its processes that failed, not an individual. As a manager, you own the organization and the processes.
Why would it be useless? Boeing's update for the Max8 MCAS (to make the FAA happy), was to make the system validate the two values.
If there is a mismatch, the system outputs an error and MCAS will disable itself.
In fact, that is literally one of the requirements set by the FAA to begin flying the Max8 again
> FAA Airworthiness Directive approved design changes for each MAX aircraft, requiring input from two AoA sensors for MCAS activation, elimination of the system's ability to repeatedly activate, and allowing pilots to override the system if necessary.
Stick pushers aren't anything new, and the sad irony is that except for the two tragedies, MCAS worked so well that in the thousands of flight hours the Max had, no pilot had even noticed it.
It absolutely was the fault of the engineers who failed to realize what would happen with an AOA fault. I'd love to be corrected, I don't believe a single email from the engineers to management telling them would would happen was ever dug up. And, there's never been an engineer whistleblower saying "I warned them."
Normally I would agree if an engineer directly knew what they were doing was bad and didn't say no but in the case of MCAS: pilots had no idea it was there. Yes, it also wasn't properly redundant and that is bad but had the pilots known it had existed in the first place and understood it was operating off a single data source they would have acted accordingly and a lot of people would still be alive. Door plug I can't speak to.
Hiding MCAS to avoid recertification was well above the paygrade of an engineer at a bench poking a circuit.
Also, if you want a short version of how this stuff goes very wrong even when engineers do say something, the challenger disaster[1] movie is great. Chase it with the NASA documents[2] for the long version.
Engineering needs to be embedded in a system that can handle the fact that engineers fail and still produce reliable and effective outputs. The primary purpose of management is making sure such as system exists and functions. Managers are the engineers of the entire meta-system, basically.
Sounds like you suggest that an MBA have no influence on the production and output of the organization, the performance, not at all, they just stand there watching helplessly while others do something some to them uncontrolable way.
Can they all be fired and the wealth they leach redistributed then please? :)
They don't put Boeing engineers in management or executive positions these days.
Heck, they fired the last CEO over the 737 crashes but he was literally only on the job for 3 years and had no involvement with the 737 design. The problem? He was an engineer and he was already stirring up shit inside. So they threw him under the bus and replaced with him another useless goon that spouts PR bullshit and has no technical experience other than milking companies dry.
An MBA designed the door plug installation process?
Maybe it’s the Boeing engineers that need some scrutiny?