"Boeing Overwrote" makes it sound like they actively did something to cause the footage to be lost. Most video surveillance systems record to a giant circular buffer, newest video overwrites oldest video automatically. In many cases there are no standards or requirements for specific retention periods, and 30-60 days is a common max storage duration. The logic being that for most incidents, you know about it in plenty of time to go back and archive the relevant video.
This looks like a scenario where there should have been standards in place for video retention, at a minimum for particularly sensitive operations where effects might not be realized for months, or even years.
> Most video surveillance systems record to a giant circular buffer
Right...because the alternative is stopping recording at a full buffer and losing new videos, instead. Considering recency is generally most valuable (followed by total length), this would be the sub-optimal option.
It's possible the headline changed or the link was changed. I've seen a few headlines that were using the same "Boeing Overwrote" phrase as the title here.
The other side of that is that original titles are often editorialized or confusing without context and the HN mantra of "OG titles only" leads to perplexing entries on the article list you have no idea what they're talking about until you've clicked through.
From the article: "Boeing overwrote security camera footage of repair work on the door plug of an Alaska Airlines 737-9 plane that failed during a flight in January, federal inspectors said Wednesday."
I would argue that video of a maintenance cycle should be kept at the very least until the next maintenance cycle. Then if something is overwritten, you still have the data.
Anything earlier than that is willful neglect at best.
>> and 30-60 days is a common max storage duration.
Depend on the industry. In the aerospatial's case, a year of backup for maintenance raw data doesn't seems absurd, even if it cost a bit more.
Who's calling for longer recordings? The NTSB or random people who don't know anything about crash investigations or politicians trying to win points with voters? Would longer recordings really help with investigations? From all the videos I've seen about them, maybe it's just selective memory, I can't recall a single time the NTSB pointed out they needed longer recordings to do or complete their investigation. I also can't think of any case off the top of my head where it would have helped in any way, much less a significant enough number to justify the cost (financial or otherwise).
Where is this call for longer recordings coming from, exactly?
You'd think an active investigation would trump standard practice. This doesn't inspire confidence in Boeing's QA process. If it was OK, it would be in Boeing's interest to hold the footage erasure so they could present it as a piece of evidence in their favor.
Edit: See child comment. I made a wrong assumption which made me think this was likely intentional. I no longer stand by this comment.
The work in question was done in, what was it, at the latest October or November if I recall? More likely before even that. The incident then happened in January.
Footage stored on a 30 day rolling basis would have been overwritten or otherwise disposed of long ago before anything even happened.
Not that Boeing's attitude toward QA does not deserve to have massive shade thrown on it, but what the hell, do you think that the QA department, likely understaffed, is staffed with precogs? They'd have needed to know something was up, which the documentation wasn't generated for to ensure. It'd traditionally be the security people who'd worry about managing security camera footage, and legal who'd generally be overseeing record retention and preservation of records in extraordinary circumstances.
So this is essentially on the FCC for approving an quality assurance scheme that leaves them with no clue to figure out if this event would have been prevented if Boeing had followed it's own processes.
The problem for this investigation is that it's not a single door but an entire line of planes designed, made and inspected using processes and policies that the FCC should probably never have approved in the first place creating an situation where half the us aviation industry would collapse if a halt operations until everything have been reinspected under a more correct regulatory framework.
So there is a huge pressure on the NTSB for finding something fixable wrong as the alternative is to start the certification process for both the MAX 8/9 designs and the Boeing manufacturing lines in question from scratch.
The FCC is not involved here. You might be thinking of the FAA, they are in charge of airplane things.
What makes you think that boeing - a company scrutinized over the last few years for shoddy work, negligent employees and incomptent management - actually followed an approved procedure? There's been a lot of reports lately of missing paperwork and lack of qc, both of which are supposed to be part of the procedures (and are in fact in the approved procedures).
This may be true, but I would expect Boeing, a titan of the industry and up until recently assumed leader of aviation safety, to retain footage for much, much longer for training and QA purposes.
Yes, I'm aware this opens them up to all kinds of liability, but corporate liability is worth so much less than data that could save human lives. I'm of the opinion that corporate retention policies are specifically encouraging companies to cover up mistakes rather than fixing them. It feels to me like, if we required companies to retain data for years rather than days, and then rewarded companies that use that data to fully cooperate with investigators, swiftly admit fault, and take corrective action when the screw up, with lower fines and penalties, that that would trump the perceived "danger" of retaining data for too long.
The fact that companies are actively encouraged to delete evidence of wrongdoing so that when a situation emerges where that data would be useful, the company can just shift blame on an asinine written policy is completely nuts to me, and shows that we've totally lost the f**ing plot when it comes to actually encouraging better safety practices.
It isn’t just “corporate liability”, it’s literally illegal in some jurisdictions to retain camera footage for that long. There are significant privacy implications for recording someone at their workplace and deciding on a retention period has to take that into account.
My guess is that the workers unions at Boeing’s plants would fight tooth and nail to keep those recordings from being retained longer.
>This may be true, but I would expect Boeing, a titan of the industry and up until recently assumed leader of aviation safety, to retain footage for much, much longer for training and QA purposes.
I mean, as someone who grew up two minutes from Boeing's Everett plant with pride, I would've said the same thing up until about a decade or so ago. Everything we have learned about Boeing's culture in the time since strongly suggests that we should expect the opposite from them.
For video (especially with proper 3-2-1 backup) it is somehow expensive.
5 years of our sales and finance data from 10+ countries takes less than a petabyte
Our 2 years backup of hundreds CCTV for only a single factory compressed, reduced to 15 fps takes around 4 PB. This data only used when we have a complaint case. Most of the times it just overwritten with new data without a single person ever see the video.
There seems to be a big miss here on the purpose of the cameras. Are they there as security cameras to help monitor the facility, or are they there to act as an audit trail for manufacturing?
Presumably the documentation processes in place (whether Boeing followed them or not) are meant to handle the manufacturing accountability need. That leaves the security cameras as just that, security cameras.
I can't get mad at a local convenience store for not retaining footage from last week or last month when 24 hours of retention fits their needs. Why should anyone complain that Boeing's security footage region doesn't meet the requirements for a use that they were never meant to handle?
This seems like a nothingburger. Pretty sure security camera footage isn't part of the standard quality/audit process (at Boeing or anywhere else) so a 30 day rolling window makes sense.
What's damning for Boeing is that the actual records of the work performed are missing[1]. Security footage of the work, even if it was present, might not have helped since we're talking about small details like screws here.
Published standards say that it's OK to destroy evidence as long as you are following written policy that says you shall destroy evidence after a certain limited time. Everything is copacetic here, at least according to published international standards and written corporate policy. Move along.
> The family says Barnett's health declined because of the stresses of taking a stand against his longtime employer.
> "He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing," they said, "which we believe led to his death."
Very tangential as he didn't work at Boeing for 7-years before this incident (retired in 2017). People seem to be claiming that he was a whistleblower for this specific incident, which he was not.
Plus I believe he was in a TV documentary where he discussed/disclosed all of the safety issues he witnesses at Boeing's plant/QA.
I'm but sure why a murder would make the situation better for Boeing. Especially after his depositions were recorded. If anything, his entire testimony is now fair game without the ability to cross examine him.
Besides, this case was unrelated to the current issues and stemmed from practices under a previous executive team.
Unless you really just love conspiracy theories, this one is awful.
Readit News
This looks like a scenario where there should have been standards in place for video retention, at a minimum for particularly sensitive operations where effects might not be realized for months, or even years.
Right...because the alternative is stopping recording at a full buffer and losing new videos, instead. Considering recency is generally most valuable (followed by total length), this would be the sub-optimal option.
The other side of that is that original titles are often editorialized or confusing without context and the HN mantra of "OG titles only" leads to perplexing entries on the article list you have no idea what they're talking about until you've clicked through.
not saying it's good, just that OP may not have been making the effort to spin it.
I would argue that video of a maintenance cycle should be kept at the very least until the next maintenance cycle. Then if something is overwritten, you still have the data.
Anything earlier than that is willful neglect at best.
>> and 30-60 days is a common max storage duration. Depend on the industry. In the aerospatial's case, a year of backup for maintenance raw data doesn't seems absurd, even if it cost a bit more.
"Consistent with standard practice, video recordings are maintained on a rolling 30 day basis."
Where is this call for longer recordings coming from, exactly?
What are you trying to say?
Edit: See child comment. I made a wrong assumption which made me think this was likely intentional. I no longer stand by this comment.
Footage stored on a 30 day rolling basis would have been overwritten or otherwise disposed of long ago before anything even happened.
The problem for this investigation is that it's not a single door but an entire line of planes designed, made and inspected using processes and policies that the FCC should probably never have approved in the first place creating an situation where half the us aviation industry would collapse if a halt operations until everything have been reinspected under a more correct regulatory framework.
So there is a huge pressure on the NTSB for finding something fixable wrong as the alternative is to start the certification process for both the MAX 8/9 designs and the Boeing manufacturing lines in question from scratch.
What makes you think that boeing - a company scrutinized over the last few years for shoddy work, negligent employees and incomptent management - actually followed an approved procedure? There's been a lot of reports lately of missing paperwork and lack of qc, both of which are supposed to be part of the procedures (and are in fact in the approved procedures).
Yes, I'm aware this opens them up to all kinds of liability, but corporate liability is worth so much less than data that could save human lives. I'm of the opinion that corporate retention policies are specifically encouraging companies to cover up mistakes rather than fixing them. It feels to me like, if we required companies to retain data for years rather than days, and then rewarded companies that use that data to fully cooperate with investigators, swiftly admit fault, and take corrective action when the screw up, with lower fines and penalties, that that would trump the perceived "danger" of retaining data for too long.
The fact that companies are actively encouraged to delete evidence of wrongdoing so that when a situation emerges where that data would be useful, the company can just shift blame on an asinine written policy is completely nuts to me, and shows that we've totally lost the f**ing plot when it comes to actually encouraging better safety practices.
My guess is that the workers unions at Boeing’s plants would fight tooth and nail to keep those recordings from being retained longer.
I mean, as someone who grew up two minutes from Boeing's Everett plant with pride, I would've said the same thing up until about a decade or so ago. Everything we have learned about Boeing's culture in the time since strongly suggests that we should expect the opposite from them.
Also, their video cameras probably shoot in 8K 10bit RAW uncompressed.
5 years of our sales and finance data from 10+ countries takes less than a petabyte
Our 2 years backup of hundreds CCTV for only a single factory compressed, reduced to 15 fps takes around 4 PB. This data only used when we have a complaint case. Most of the times it just overwritten with new data without a single person ever see the video.
Dead Comment
Presumably the documentation processes in place (whether Boeing followed them or not) are meant to handle the manufacturing accountability need. That leaves the security cameras as just that, security cameras.
I can't get mad at a local convenience store for not retaining footage from last week or last month when 24 hours of retention fits their needs. Why should anyone complain that Boeing's security footage region doesn't meet the requirements for a use that they were never meant to handle?
What's damning for Boeing is that the actual records of the work performed are missing[1]. Security footage of the work, even if it was present, might not have helped since we're talking about small details like screws here.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/03/09/1237204488/boeing-door-plug-a...
Some more discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696071
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/12/1238033573/boeing-whistleblow...
> The family says Barnett's health declined because of the stresses of taking a stand against his longtime employer.
> "He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing," they said, "which we believe led to his death."
Plus I believe he was in a TV documentary where he discussed/disclosed all of the safety issues he witnesses at Boeing's plant/QA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barnett_(Boeing_employee)
Besides, this case was unrelated to the current issues and stemmed from practices under a previous executive team.
Unless you really just love conspiracy theories, this one is awful.
Do you really think a company that is already getting undesirable press coverage would put a hit on someone?