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Comment by gouggoug | Hacker News Reader

What a sensationalist headline.

> Boeing said it self-disclosed the problem to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after Air Canada notified them of the fuel leak.

> The records stated that manufacturing work had been completed when it had not.

> "immediate corrective action was initiated for both the Boeing mechanic and the Boeing inspector involved."

So "Boeing" didn't falsified records, 2 of their employees did.

Now, whether Boeing's company culture (tight deadlines? overworked employees?) contributed to this or not, is another story, but, the headline is misleading; borderline dishonest.

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Wouldn’t that mean that a company can never be responsible for the output of the company? At every level, anything is just “a couple of employees”. The headline is reasonable.

I would agree with you if they had not self reported and taken immediate corrective action.

Boeing self-reported after Air Canada had already created a "paper trail". At that point, they could hardly hope to keep the failure secret.

I've met executives who said 'Don't mail me problems, always call me.' or who said 'Don't ever tell me problems'.

Because the moment there is a paper trail, they can't hide.

As an employee you always want to create a paper trail otherwise they will pin it on you. Print emails if necessary.

Absolutely this. There is a tendency in higher management circles to only want paper trail created after a decision to deal with or dismiss an issue is made. I never realized why until I found out about e-discovery.

You can get around this somewhat by fulfilling their request to be notified without paper trail, then immediately e-mailing them and everyone involved with a copy of the problem discussed, the decision made, the reasoning behind the decision (including attribution to who said what), and the the action plan moving forward.

If you really feel uncomfortable about it, include the weather outside the office day. It seems silly, but it can lead to some interesting lines of questioning in legal proceedings, and it also serves as a canary to those paying attention to what you are concerned may be in the future moving forward. Sometimes this may kindle a more in-depth review of the subject matter at hand.

People may think you're weird. However, most just file it under "there is no communication like over-communication."

"If you really feel uncomfortable about it, include the weather outside the office day. It seems silly, but it can lead to some interesting lines of questioning in legal proceeding"

Will remember this!

Sure, but is it really a question here that Boeing definitely would not try to hide this in the first place?

Why would Boeing willingly and knowingly ship a plane with a fuel leak? They know a fuel leak has an extremely deadly potential.

What could _possibly_ be the interest for Boeing to ship _one_ plane with a fuel leak? If that was a systematic thing, then yes why not, we could say they hid it on purpose. But here it doesn’t make sense.

pretty much exactly the mantra of the DOJ from 2008 and fwd. Let's fine the corporations and let the bad actors go free.

No it wouldn’t.

Ultimately the company is responsible for having processes that prevent this to happen.

However, processes fail.

Obviously if both the mechanic and the inspector plot together, then the process fails. And that’s what happened here.

Boeing reported it as soon as they were made aware of it.

Boeing said it self-disclosed the problem to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after Air Canada notified them of the fuel leak.

If that statement is accurate it means Boeing the entity took ownership of what was being reported.

It also means they take ownership of the accuracy of the information being reported.

So if that information was wrong then Boeing the entity has misled the FAA.

"So "Boeing" didn't falsified records, 2 of their employees did."

You should become a lawyer.

I definitely should not and I don’t even pretend anything I am saying would hold in court. That’s not even close to the point here.

I’m simply commenting on what I think is a misleading clickbait headline.

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