You are all arguing irrelevant points. Because the premise is false.
You can identify the people responsible. I won't bother to explain it all, but at very step of the manufacturing process different workers signed off on the integrity of their work. All of that paperwork was logged with the US government. If you let me peruse those papers I could tell you who designed each and every component of the landing gear, and which workers assembled that landing gear on each and every MAX out there. I can tell you which executives signed off on it, and if you subpoena the documents I could even tell you what they were all emailing back and forth. More importantly, I can tell you which QA engineers and executives were involved in the QA and testing process for that landing gear and give you the results of the tests they ran. So on and so forth, all the way up to the CEO.
We can identify people. We've simply decided that we won't. You guys are arguing an orthogonal point as to whether or not to hold C level executives accountable. I can tell you right now you're going to effect much better change if you target key executives at the director-VP level than if you target C level people.
We do need to get rid of the rats. And a lot of those are C level executives, but it's important right now to get rid of all the rats. And right now, many of those rats are being promoted.
There's a very simple legal phrase which is "knew or should have known" - the CEO knew or should have known. It's that simple.
If you are the CEO and you did not, you should have, and you are responsible. It doesn't really need to be more complicated to incentivize rooting out evil - if we hold people responsible authorities (those with power) who should have known, they will figure out a way to increase integrity of their organizations instead of spreading accountability through infinity vendors.
The CEO is accountable for culture and hiring, good or bad. If someone below them hired poorly, the CEO failed by hiring a poor hiring manager. As the poster above said, the buck stops at the top.
If some random person on the floor didn't properly log a maintenance activity, that is the CEO's fault for not creating a culture in which proper documentation is properly stressed. Again, the buck stops at the top.
That person on the floor must be, and usually is, indemnified, because it's more important to get open and honest feedback from them on what happened. That way we know the changes the CEO failed to implement to prevent it from happening, and should now implement to prevent it from happening again. This is because the buck stops at the top.
That person on the floor must be, and usually is, indemnified
That's not how FAA submitted documentation works. Just don't sign it if you have any questions. I never signed anything until I had personally verified the data and/or the code for myself.
If there are young engineers out there reading this, please disregard these people telling you that you are indemnified. Talk to a lawyer yourself if you don't believe me, but please don't follow the advice these people are laying out.
Signing off on something you know to be untrue and submitting that to the FDA or FAA as part of an approval process is a federal crime. Not only that, but the way our lawyers explained it to us, each time we sign off on something that turns out to be false, it counts as one count of lying to the federal government. And, no, you being an employee who was directed to sign does not absolve you from culpability.
Any 1L knows that you cannot, under any circumstances, contract away criminal liability. You are always liable for the actions you take that turn out to be criminal.
Again, don't believe me telling you that you will be committing a crime if you sign off on a fix or design that turns out to be bunk. Definitely don't believe these guys telling you will be protected if you sign off. Go talk to an attorney for yourself. You'll find what I'm saying is true. You want to find that out before you sign off on a fix or a design. Not after. Believe me.
Just some fatherly advice from an older engineer to younger ones. Please protect yourselves.
It's important to note the NTSB has a famously blameless postmortem process, because they have found that that, rather than naming technician names, is how to best get information from the technicians about the culture built by the CEO.
A CEO who builds a culture encouraging technicians to skip a maintenance entry (no signing off on something that isn't there), is accountable for failings that result from it, because the buck stops at the top.
A CEO who builds a culture which attacks whistleblowers and people who would report the above incident, is accountable for failings that result from it, because the buck stops at the top.
You can identify the people responsible. I won't bother to explain it all, but at very step of the manufacturing process different workers signed off on the integrity of their work. All of that paperwork was logged with the US government. If you let me peruse those papers I could tell you who designed each and every component of the landing gear, and which workers assembled that landing gear on each and every MAX out there. I can tell you which executives signed off on it, and if you subpoena the documents I could even tell you what they were all emailing back and forth. More importantly, I can tell you which QA engineers and executives were involved in the QA and testing process for that landing gear and give you the results of the tests they ran. So on and so forth, all the way up to the CEO.
We can identify people. We've simply decided that we won't. You guys are arguing an orthogonal point as to whether or not to hold C level executives accountable. I can tell you right now you're going to effect much better change if you target key executives at the director-VP level than if you target C level people.
We do need to get rid of the rats. And a lot of those are C level executives, but it's important right now to get rid of all the rats. And right now, many of those rats are being promoted.