The Real Reason behind Boeing’s 737 Max Failure
Newsflash: Accountants Kill Hundreds
There’s a nice 3-minute video that explains the 737 crashes that killed hundreds: How to Reset C by GE Light Bulbs. You only need to watch about a minute to understand.
Of course, why anyone would buy a light bulb that requires resetting is beyond me. Further, the 3-minute video is actually two reset procedures, depending on the firmware in your light bulb. I think the unintentional lesson of the video is: never buy a light bulb with firmware.
Anyway, here’s the first reset procedure:
Turn bulb off for 5 seconds
Turn on for 8 seconds
Turn off for 2 seconds
Turn on for 8 seconds
Turn off for 2 seconds
Turn on for 8 seconds
Turn off for 2 seconds
Turn on for 8 seconds
Turn off for 2 seconds
Turn on for 8 seconds
Turn off for 2 seconds
Turn on one last time. Bulb will flash 3 times. If it doesn’t, your bulb is running on older firmware.
It’s even more insane if you watch the video.
Now, does it work (e.g. reset your bulb)? Sure! (probably; like I’ve tried it.)
Is there a better way to program this procedure? Of course. But this is what you get when you outsource your software to $9/hour coders. It will work, mostly. It will also likely be clunky, inefficient, cumbersome. But it’s a light bulb, so who cares?
Except that Boeing did the same thing for much of its software.
Boeing had a problem. They needed to upgrade the 737 except that they didn’t want to redesign too much or it would be considered a ‘new plane,’ which would trigger a more thorough review from U.S. government authorities and would require pilots around the world to be retrained. Airlines — especially low-cost third-world airplanes— are not interested in having to retrain their pilots. (FYI the cost of buying these planes, even for airlines such as Ethiopia’s, is subsidized by the U.S. Import/Export Bank, a para-government entity. Ethiopia airlines likely couldn’t afford to buy the planes themselves, which also explains why they aren’t interested in additional training costs.) So, Boeing wanted to swap out the old 737 engines for new ones, which were too big to be put in the same place so they had to be attached to the plane in new places. Other changes were made. In summary, all these changes made the plane a little unstable at times, which Boeing decided could be solved with software. In the end, it was a hardware problem and a software solution.
But much of the 737 Max’s software was coded by $9/hour programmers.[1] Those are the low-level coders at HCL. These are coders on the bottomest of rungs and are the same people who coded GE’s light bulb (assumption, but probably true). Which is okay if you’re coding a light bulb — no one dies when your light bulb doesn’t reset. (FYI I get the feeling most people reset their GE light bulbs by throwing them in the trash can.)
But if you’re coding anything more complicated than a light bulb, you’re going to have serious problems when you opt for the lowest-cost coders.
Planes fly into the ground when you treat software as an expense instead of an asset.
Planes fly into the ground when you account for software as a cost center instead of a source of value.
And people actually died.
Companies, particularly larger ones, do this all the time (hi IBM!). It’s usually a sign that they’ve run out of ideas, so instead of investing in creativity, they start cutting costs. Once the accountants take over, you often enter into a death spiral and you get Kodak or Blockbuster or GM in the 1990s when every vehicle looked like it was designed by an accountant.
This problem is endemic. Gatwick (the airport) recently went out (as in: shut down entirely).[2] Systemic failure of its air traffic control systems. So who do you think runs Gatwick’s servers? Set up its databases? Runs it power management software? Go ahead, Google around, and you’ll eventually land on the same people who coded GE’s light bulbs.
This observation is not new but rarely has it been so dramatically on display as when a passenger jet flies itself into the ground. In fact, Steve Jobs once commented on how companies rot when their best ideas come out of accounting. He was, of course, referring to IBM.
Perhaps of interest, an internal Boeing paper from 2001 wherein a Boeing engineer makes the argument that outsourcing engineering will eventually bite them in the ass.
seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2011/02/04/2014130646.pdf
About Nathan Allen
Formerly of Xio Research, an A.I. company. Previously a strategy and development leader at IBM Watson Education. His views do not necessarily reflect anyone’s, including his own. (What.) Nathan’s academic training is in intellectual history; his next book, Weapon of Choice, examines the creation of American identity and modern Western power. Don’t get too excited, Weapon of Choice isn’t about wars but rather more about the seeming ex nihilo development of individual agency … which doesn’t really seem sexy until you consider that individual agency covers everything from voting rights to the cash in your wallet to the reason mass communication even makes sense….
