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165 points starkparker | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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thomascountz ◴[] No.44525985[source]
> We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the left MED plug due to Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training, guidance, and oversight necessary to ensure that manufacturing personnel could consistently and correctly comply with its parts removal process, which was intended to document and ensure that the securing bolts and hardware that were removed to facilitate rework during the manufacturing process were properly reinstalled.

A bit OT, but what a gorgeous whale of a sentence! As always, the literary prowess of NTSB writers does not disappoint.

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JoshTriplett ◴[] No.44526384[source]
Also, I really appreciate the way they put blame where it belongs. They don't say "manufacturing personnel failed to ...", they say "Boeing failed to provide adequate training, guidance, and oversight necessary to ensure that manufacturing personnel could consistently and correctly ...".
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mrandish ◴[] No.44526480[source]
Agreed about properly assigning the root cause to inadequate training but the sentence was unnecessarily complex in not making the first order cause clear until the end. I'd prefer stating up front that the first order cause was "securing bolts and hardware that were removed to facilitate rework" were not reinstalled - and then stating the root cause leading to that being inadequate training.

In the context of a summary I just expect the core sentence to take events in order from the headline failure ("in-flight exit door plug separation") and then work back to the root cause.

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lobochrome ◴[] No.44526570[source]
In the end - action matters. Somebody didn’t put the bolts back in.

Yes - zooming out it important and ultimately where actionable remediation can be applied - but blame is due where blame is due: somebody fucked up at work and it almost brought down a plane.

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1. calfuris ◴[] No.44526634[source]
In the end, identifying where you can usefully take action to reduce the chances of something similar happen in the future is far more useful than assigning blame.
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2. xp84 ◴[] No.44526677[source]
Yes! It's basically better to take all screw-up(s) and make their recurrence the assumption. 'Given people will forget to replace bolts how can we best make it so the plane cannot exit the factory without the bolts in place?'