Cartoon

Great Again

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Nick Anderson)

In other news, Wisconsin's state court of appeals has temporarily halted a court-ordered purge of 209,000 registered voters sought by Republicans.

Meanwhile, Britain, France, and Germany are accusing Iran of breaking the nuclear peace deal which seems like a "duh" kind of moment given recent events. Iran announced they would no longer abide by the terms of the deal after Trump ordered the assassination of Soleimani.

Finally, internal messages from Boeing show the company convinced Indonesia’s Lion Air not to train their pilots specifically for flying the 737 Max a year before a Lion Air flight crashed. Some employees at Boeing also mocked Lion Air for considering training.

Indonesia’s Lion Air considered putting its pilots through simulator training before flying the Boeing Co. 737 Max but abandoned the idea after the planemaker convinced them in 2017 it was unnecessary, according to people familiar with the matter and internal company communications.

The next year, 189 people died when a Lion Air 737 Max plunged into the Java Sea, a disaster blamed in part on inadequate training and the crew’s unfamiliarity with a new flight-control feature on the Max that malfunctioned. [...]

“Now friggin Lion Air might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity. I’m scrambling trying to figure out how to unscrew this now! idiots,” one Boeing employee wrote in June 2017 text messages obtained by the company and released by the House committee.

In response, a Boeing colleague replied: “WHAT THE F%$&!!!! But their sister airline is already flying it!” That was an apparent reference to Malindo Air, the Malaysian-based carrier that was the first to fly the Max commercially.

There are no words.

Programming note... tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my mother's death and I'm going out to lunch with my father. I will most likely be offline for the day and back here on Thursday.