Slashdot Mirror
Airbus A380 Under Fire
jose parinas writes "The security of the Airbus A380 jetliner is questioned by a U.S. Engineer that faces arrest and bankruptcy in Austria. A year ago, Mangan told European aviation authorities that he believed there were problems with a computer chip on the Airbus A380, the biggest and costliest commercial airliner ever built."
Take chip, look for problem, if exists fix and replace. It isn't like they would have to rebuild the whole plane.
Let's just hope at least slashdot does keep its hands out of the propaganda war already started between Boeing (US) and Airbus Industries (EU). It's a dirty economical struggle, its about jobs and profits in the US, or jobs and profits in Europe. And because of that, plus the military aspects of aircraft research and development, both companies are, and will always be heavily funded by the respective governments.
Keep that in mind before making mindless posts about A. vs. B. . Thanks for your time.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Let us assume that a problem is found. But even if it is fixed, then how can we know for sure that other problemtic parts were used? If this chip was able to get through the engineering screening process, perhaps other faulty componentry was used as well. A fault here could, in theory, make need for a complete analysis of every single part used. And in a plane this size, that's a massive amount of time and effort.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The story begins with a portrait that tries to paint this fellow sympathetically, and I normally would look on him sympathetically. He goes to the government and complains about problems he perceives, and he gets fired. The events transpire, and eventually a judge tells him to be quiet. By now this is out in the public - he is an American with a family in a foreign city and if he had a need to do something he did it. But then he violates the judges order and begins posting about this on a blog? It makes me think there's something more to the story, or as aviation consultant Weber says "There is something really unusual about this case in the sense that there is this hard standoff between Airbus and the individual, it doesn't make any sense to me." It doesn't make sense - him violating a judges order doesn't make sense, them filing criminal charges doesn't make sense. There seems to be something more at work here. I'll read more about this, but both parties are acting unusual to the point where I am really on neither side, whereas normally I suppose I would be on his side.
The secret: never (almost) moderate a comment with a score of 3 or higher up. By that point, the comment is known. You can moderate any comment down if it deserves it (don't bother moderating the 0 and -1 posts down). Find the diamonds in the rough. Read at -1 when you get mod points and mod up those posts that are really good/funny. Even if they are from ACs or start at 1, moderate them up.
This is easiest to do if you do it on new stories. Get in there with the first few comments. That is your best chance to find them. Once the post count grows, many of those posts are already up at 5, and you are unlikely to find any new great posts down low (unless everyone completely misses the point of the story).
One other thing: I never meta-moderate. I used to. I did it daily. It never seemed to increase the number of mod points I got. I stopped meta-moderating because the politics section appeared (I'm right-wing and I can't STAND reading the politics section's comments: they are so full of hate and so far left very often. There is no respect and the most hateful vitriol can end up +5 Insightful fast.) Shortly there after, I discovered the technique above and have been getting many mod points ever since.
Last (and hopefully obvious): USE THE POINTS. Don't let them expire, otherwise it will be a long time before you get more. Save them for a story you know a lot about (something in your field) if possible, but don't let them expire.
I worked for 3 pharma companies. I would never openly challenge a company like this about their product. I would find a new employer first and then I would try to leak out what was going on - and I would be extra careful that my new and old employers would not find out it was me. Why volunteer yourselfs to go in front of a firing squad? - It is not important that you made the point first, give a journalist a hint, he will give you a story. If they then call you then to testify, you do it, maybe without trying to look eager.
Reporting to autorities on your own employer - even if there was a serious wrongdoing - is certain to end your industry career.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
The FAA and European agencies are pretty close to each other on regulations...a good thing since we fly big commercial aircraft in each others airspace all the time. The rest of the Airbus fleet is type-certificated in the US, I can only assume they wish the same for the A380.
In this country, you're not going to put an "off the shelf" anything in a commercial aircraft unless it's gone through appropriate approval processes. You can't change the color of the fluid in the compass bowl without PMA approval.
Furthermore, if they want thier TCDS (Type Certificate Data Sheet), they will need to, among other things:
1) Fully ground test the operation of the depressurization valves
2) Ground pressurization test the aircraft
3) Test the pressurization systems in flight
[Reference: Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 25, Subpart D, Paragraphs 841 and 843]
Bypassing the approval process for a component is a serious charge. However, given that a gigantic double-decker commercial aircraft has "new and novel" written all over it, something just doesn't quite compute here.
Smells like a propaganda war, but I'll keep my eye on it.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I thought many if not most airline pilots started their careers as a hot shit Navy (or Air Force) Jet Jock?
My first reaction was the expected "Oh my god! This consciencious guy is getting royally screwed!" and I immediately felt for his situation and could only hope to be as honorable.
But after reading the article and the other Slashdot opinions, I too think there's a lot that needs to be revealed before we can form an opinion about this.
Ultimately, we should hope that all the facts are revealed in this case and quickly. If there's a problem, it should be fixed and let this thing move on. If there's not, then I hope the true motivations are revealed as well. But I don't want to see this problem disappear under secrecy and then read about some horrible terrorist attack that was actually a system malfunction in disguise.
Maybe he remembers the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Seven people died then, when an engineer followed company orders not to oppose the launch and to keep quiet.
Maybe Mangan, the former ITTech engineer, has a conscience and takes his ethical responsibilities as an engineer seriously. If he knows of a problem and knows the company has falsified test data, it is his duty to come forward. To remain quiet would make him partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people should a catastrophic failure occur in the Airbus pressure valves.
Also, how reliable are the systems that tell the forward landing gear to point sideways? (Remember the recent Airbus emergency landing?)
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
You're doing the morally right thing but you'll get the shaft every time...
Mangan said he was looking for a new job. He has contacted dozens of aerospace firms in the U.S. and Europe, but none have returned his calls. "Nobody wants to touch me," he said.
It's not really shocking that nobody wants to touch you after you've potentially cost your former employer, in the same field no less, millions of dollars. It's amazing to me though that the US has some of the best protection laws when it comes to this sort of thing.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
It sounds like much more than he deserves if he really started spreading FUD after it was clear that he was going to lose his job.
The only way to decide whether he is a whistle blower or a liar that tries to make some cash by blackmailing his former employer and Airbus is to have an independent review of the chip in question. Airbus said they did that but of course they're biased.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I'll take that one further.
A Persons first duty is always to the public.
It doesn't matter who you are. If your a cook, and know the meat your using was mishandeled, you have an obligation to prevent human consumption. Doctors have an obligation to preserve life. A cop's first duty is to the public (before his fellow officers or commanders).
- say as little as needed to avoid getting entangled in details or...
- say as little as possible so Airbus is deceived into thinking the part is "simple."
Without more documents, it's not clear to me which interpretation is closer to the truth.In this document he asserts that the OS that runs on the chip was hacked together and that the software being delivered to Airbus was not put together according to the software engineering standards Airbus requires of its sub-contractors. He also says:
Perhaps someone here knows Jeff Young and can ask him if Mangan's charge is true vis-a-vis the product delivered to Honeywell.The fact that the company forged his signature on internal certifications should be enough to throw the burden of proof on the company.
It's not a fact. It's a claim made by Mangan that no doubt will come up during trial. If this can be proven, then it's a really bad mark against the the company.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
It sure sounds like Austria has a screwed up legal system.
Screwed up as it is I don't think the Austrian system is any worse than the US, German, French. British one.... The basic truth is that every body is equal under the law in a Democracy and everybody can get justice. All you have to do is put up the money for a N-year long legal battle and we all know who is more likely to win that one don't we? Ciitizen John Q. Public or Corporation X? My money is on the corporation. The end result in cases like this usually is that however wrong they may be the corporations always win. They do it by dragging things out in court until they have bankrupted you broken up your marrage and genarally ruined yoru life causing you to give up. One is just left hoping that Boeing and Airbus both have the sense to test these chips exhaustively before one of their aircraft makes them regret their lethargy when several hundred people die. Of course it usually never sinks in until to late that the PR damage done by one of their new superliners crashing will cost them more than what they are saving by ignoring the problem but one can always hope for a miracle, like... say... an aerospace industry CEO growing a consience? I know it's a slim chance but I have't quite given up on the human race yet.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The pilot made *excessive* alternating rudder inputs. The main problem with the aircraft seems to have been that it wasn't programmed to stop him. Try trusting the NTSB reports instead of the conspiracy theories.
Not to mention that turning this into a pissing contest will force someone else to bring up the problems with the Boeing 737 rudder. You wouldn't want that, would you?
My Sig: SEGV
The test you saw was the emergency deployment when all hydraulic power has been lost and not normal deployment.
In the case of a complete hydraulics failure the crew can actuate a manual lever which unlocks the undercarrage and deploys it using only gravity to do so. This is what you saw.
Normally, the doors and the undercarrage itself are driven fully by the hydraulic system and the doors are never touched by the wheels or anything else.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"