> The idea that people shouldn't be charged with crimes because that makes them cover up crimes is pretty hard to grok.
I think the point is more about what we treat as crimes. My assumption is that the grandparent post is a reaction to the number of people in the comments here demanding criminal liability for the door plug issue, especially for Boeing executives, despite a notable lack of evidence of criminal actions (or actions that should be criminal) by Boeing executives or anyone else for that matter.
Charging people with crimes when there is evidence they've committed crimes seems like fair game, but the assumption that a crime was involved just because something bad happened seems like a bad approach to aviation safety. Maybe that's where this case will end up, but calls for it now seem wildly premature and likely to have the chilling effect the grandparent poster is talking about.
My point is not about deliberate criminal behavior (such as sabotage) but simply making mistakes. Designing and building an airliner is an incredibly complex undertaking, and most mistakes are "obvious" only in hindsight.
I recall one where the vent for dumping fuel turned out to be upstream of the cabin air intake. Eventually, an airliner needed to dump fuel, it was sucked up by the cabin air intake and the vapors blown through the cabin, and of course it blew up.
It sounds like "how could someone have made such a mistake!". The cabin engineers were a separate group from the engine people, that's how.
Another crash happened because a maintenance worker taped over the pitot tubes to protect them when the airplane was cleaned. He forgot to remove them afterwards. The tape wasn't very visible, and the inspection missed the tape. The airplane took off and crashed. The maintenance worker was prosecuted for his mistake. I felt sorry for the poor bastard - not only did he have to live with the guilt, but was jailed as well.
P.S. if someone in the aviation industry comes to work high or drunk, and makes a mistake while under the influence, I have no issue with prosecuting them.
> My point is not about deliberate criminal behavior (such as sabotage) but simply making mistakes.
I agree, but of course the difficult grey area is negligence; obviously some things are criminally unacceptable. The standard is sort-of 'should they have known better?' There's no easy, objective, logical map to an answer.
Criminal prosecutions of corporations and executives are rare enough that I'm not too worried about it being overdone, but of course there is the risk of emotional or crowd-pleasing decisions.
I think the point is more about what we treat as crimes. My assumption is that the grandparent post is a reaction to the number of people in the comments here demanding criminal liability for the door plug issue, especially for Boeing executives, despite a notable lack of evidence of criminal actions (or actions that should be criminal) by Boeing executives or anyone else for that matter.
Charging people with crimes when there is evidence they've committed crimes seems like fair game, but the assumption that a crime was involved just because something bad happened seems like a bad approach to aviation safety. Maybe that's where this case will end up, but calls for it now seem wildly premature and likely to have the chilling effect the grandparent poster is talking about.