波音公司承认对吹哨人进行了报复

On June 18, Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, attended the first hearing of the U.S. Senate on the frequent exposure of safety issues of Boeing aircraft. At the hearing, Calhoun admitted that Boeing had retaliated against "whistleblowers" internally.

6月18日，美国波音公司首席执行官戴夫·卡尔霍恩，首次出席美国国会参议院就波音飞机频繁暴露安全问题举行的听证会。在听证会上，卡尔霍恩承认波音内部对“吹哨人”实施过报复。

Blumenthal, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said at the hearing that his staff had talked to more than 20 Boeing whistleblowers. Those who dared to speak out were retaliated against and forced to remain silent. Calhoun told Blumenthal that Boeing had punished executives who retaliated against whistleblowers, but he could not give an exact number.

美国参议院常设调查小组委员会主席布卢门撒尔在听证会上表示，他的工作人员已经和20多名波音公司的“吹哨人”进行了交谈。那些敢于发声的人遭到了报复，被迫保持沉默。卡尔霍恩则对布卢门撒尔说，波音公司已对报复“吹哨人”的主管进行了处罚，但他无法给出确切数字。

When the U.S. Senate Special Committee held a hearing in April, a "whistleblower" pointed out Boeing's security loopholes. On June 18, another "whistleblower" came forward. Sam Mohawk, a quality inspector at Boeing's Renton, Washington factory, said at the hearing that Boeing chose to "systematically ignore" parts that may have safety hazards or did not keep production records in accordance with regulations.

美国国会参议院专门委员会4月举行听证会时，已有“吹哨人”指出波音的安全漏洞。6月18日又有“吹哨人”站出来。波音公司华盛顿州伦顿工厂质检员萨姆·莫霍克在听证会上说，对可能有安全隐患或未按规定做生产记录的部件，波音选择了“系统性忽视”。

The hearing was held after the U.S. Department of Justice determined that Boeing had violated a settlement agreement reached with the Department of Justice in 2021. The U.S. Department of Justice has submitted relevant letters to the federal court in Texas and will inform the court whether to sue by July 7.

这场听证会，是在美国司法部认定波音公司违反了一项2021年与司法部达成的和解协议后召开的。美国司法部已向得克萨斯州联邦法院提交了相关信件，并将在7月7日前告知法院是否起诉。

After two air crashes, the blame has been shifted

两场空难后一直在甩锅

Boeing aircraft were once considered the safest civil airliners, but the continuous catastrophic incidents in recent years have punctured the Boeing myth.

波音飞机曾被视为最安全的民航客机，但是近年来不断发生的灾难性事件戳穿了波音神话。

On October 29, 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX8 passenger plane of Indonesia Lion Air Group crashed into the sea 13 minutes after takeoff, with 189 people on board and no one survived. The crashed plane had just been delivered to Lion Air Group two months ago.

2018年10月29日，一架印尼狮航集团波音737 MAX8客机起飞13分钟后坠海，飞机上共载有189人，无人生还。失事飞机刚交付狮航集团两个月。

The investigation report shows that there are design problems in the anti-stall maneuvering characteristics enhancement system of the crashed aircraft. This system is responsible for automatically lowering the nose of the aircraft when it enters a stall state at a high angle of attack (angle of attack, simply understood as the angle at which the aircraft lifts its head) to prevent the aircraft from stalling and crashing. Boeing allowed the adjustment angle of the aircraft's horizontal tail to increase from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees, but did not inform the Federal Aviation Administration to upxe it, nor did it upxe the flight manual.

调查报告显示，失事飞机防失速的机动特性增强系统存在设计问题。这个系统是负责在高攻角（攻角，简单理解就是飞机抬头的角度）进入失速状态时自动压低机头的，以避免飞机失速坠毁。波音公司允许对飞机水平尾翼进行调整的角度从0.6度提高至2.5度，但没有告知美国联邦航空管理局进行更新，也没有更新飞行手册。

On March 10, 2019, a Boeing 737 MAX8 passenger plane of Ethiopian Airlines took off from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and crashed shortly after, killing 157 people. There were 8 Chinese on the crashed plane. The investigation results showed that the problem still lay in the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system.

2019年3月10日，埃塞俄比亚航空公司一架波音737 MAX8客机从埃塞俄比亚首都亚的斯亚贝巴起飞，不久坠毁，造成157人死亡，失事飞机上有8名中国人。调查结果显示，问题仍出在机动特性增强系统上。

In September 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives released a report stating that the crash of the Lion Air passenger plane in Indonesia was caused by a series of serious mistakes made by Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration. Boeing was aware of the errors and defects but deliberately concealed them, while the Federal Aviation Administration was seriously negligent in its approval and supervision.

2020年9月，美国国会众议院发布报告称，印尼狮航客机失事是波音公司及美国联邦航空管理局“犯下了一系列严重错误”共同导致的。波音公司明知有错误缺陷却故意隐瞒，而美国联邦航空管理局在审批监管上严重失职。

In January 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a criminal lawsuit against Boeing, accusing it of conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration. Within a few days, Boeing reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice: Boeing paid a fine of $243.6 million and $2.5136 billion in compensation, and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to postpone the prosecution of Boeing, provided that Boeing must comply with the obligations stipulated in the three-year deferred prosecution agreement, after which the charges will be dropped.

2021年1月，美国司法部对波音提起刑事诉讼，指控其密谋欺骗联邦航空管理局。没几天，波音公司就与美国司法部达成和解协议：波音支付2.436亿美元的罚款和25.136亿美元的赔偿，美国司法部则同意推迟对波音公司的起诉，前提是波音必须遵守三年延期起诉协议中规定的义务，此后该指控将被撤销。

That was what happened. But Boeing was unable to recover from the scandal when it blamed two low-level employees and then the whistleblower died.

这就是事情的经过。但是，波音当时把责任推卸给了两名低级别职员，随后又出现了“吹哨人”死亡事件，波音没能从丑闻中摆脱出来。
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Two "whistleblowers" died one after another

两名“吹哨人”先后死亡

Boeing employs thousands of quality control personnel, including John Barnett, quality manager at Boeing's North Charleston plant, which builds the 787 Dreamliner.

波音雇佣了数千名质量监管人员，在波音北查尔斯顿工厂担任质量经理的约翰·巴内特是其中一位。这个工厂主要生产波音787梦想飞机。
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As early as 2016, Barnett reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that some substandard parts were used in the production of Boeing 787, but his report was not taken seriously. The following year, Barnett was forced to retire.

早在2016年，巴内特就曾向美国联邦航空管理局举报波音787生产中使用了一些不合格零件，但他的举报没有得到重视。第二年，巴内特就被逼退休。

After two air crashes in 2018 and 2019, Boeing's quality issues caused widespread concern. Barnett once again stood up and broke the news to the media, saying that workers under high pressure deliberately installed substandard parts on the aircraft on the production line. In addition, tests showed that a quarter of the breathing masks installed on 787 passenger aircraft might not be activated, etc.

2018年—2019年两起空难事件发生后，波音的质量问题引发普遍担忧，巴内特再次站出来向媒体爆料，称高压下的工人故意在生产线上为飞机安装不合标准的零件。此外，测试表明，安装在787客机上的呼吸面罩有四分之一可能无法启动，等等。

Barnett thus became the representative of Boeing's "whistleblower" and actively participated in the "inside story disclosure" activities against Boeing.

巴内特由此成为波音“吹哨人”的代表，积极参与针对波音公司的“揭发内幕案件”活动。

On March 9 of this year, Barnett was supposed to appear in court for an investigation related to Boeing, but was found dead in a truck in the hotel parking lot.

今年3月9日，巴内特本应出庭接受一场与波音相关的调查问询，结果被发现死于酒店停车场的卡车里。

The US police confirmed in May that he had committed suicide. However, a close friend of Barnett revealed that Barnett had a premonition that something might happen to him, so he told his friends not to believe any news that he had committed suicide.

美国警方5月确认他为“自杀”。但与巴内特关系亲密的朋友爆料称，巴内特已提前预感到了自己可能会出事，因此告诉朋友，如果有消息称他自杀了，不要相信这件事情。

On April 30, the second whistleblower, Joshua Dean, died of a sudden illness at the age of 45. Dean was a quality inspector at Spirit Aerosystems, a major supplier to Boeing. After the cabin door of a Boeing 737 aircraft suddenly fell off in January this year, he reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that senior quality management personnel on the production line that Spirit supplied Boeing 737 aircraft had serious misconduct.

4月30日，第二位“吹哨人”乔舒亚·迪安又突发疾病去世，年仅45岁。迪安是波音主要供应商势必锐航空系统公司的质量检测员。今年1月波音737飞机突发舱门脱落事故后，他曾向美国联邦航空管理局举报称，势必锐为波音737飞机供货生产线上的高级质量管理人员存在严重的不当行为。

The Seattle Times reported that Dean had always been in good health, lived a healthy lifestyle, exercised, and paid close attention to his diet.

而《西雅图时报》报道说，迪安生前身体一向很好，生活方式健康，保持锻炼，对饮食十分注意。

These two whistleblower deaths have once again drawn outside attention to Boeing's quality issues and internal scandals.

这两起“吹哨人”死亡事件，令外界再次关注到波音的质量问题和内部黑幕。
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The hearing confrontation did not touch upon the real key points

听证会上的对峙并没有触及真正的关键问题

At a hearing on June 18, Boeing CEO Calhoun attributed Boeing's current problems to "safety culture" issues, while U.S. lawmakers attending the hearing criticized Calhoun for not resigning immediately after the safety issues were repeatedly exposed. Such confrontations actually did not touch the real key points.

在6月18日的听证会上，波音首席执行官卡尔霍恩把波音现在存在的问题归结为“安全文化”问题，而参会的美国议员们则炮轰卡尔霍恩为何不在安全问题屡遭曝光后立即辞职。这样的交锋其实都没有触及真正要害。

Boeing once pursued an engineering culture that valued quality, but after acquiring McDonnell Douglas for a huge sum of money in 1997, the pursuit of maximum returns and providing the capital market with beautiful financial reports became the mainstream culture. At that time, of Boeing's 18-member executive team, only one person was actually from Boeing.

波音曾经追求重视质量的工程师文化，但在1997年以巨资收购麦道后，追求最大收益、给资本市场提供漂亮财报成为主流文化。当时波音18人的高管团队中，真正来自波音的只剩下1人。

In the 1990s, especially after Clinton came to power, financial regulation was relaxed and many American companies, like Boeing, turned to pursuing huge profits in the financial market and abandoned their original manufacturing traditions.

而上世纪90年代，特别是克林顿上台后，放开了金融监管，许多美国企业都像波音一样，转去追求金融市场的暴利，放弃了制造业的原有传统。

On the other hand, in order to resist hostile takeovers in the capital market, large American companies have been competing to hire executives with high salaries and setting up golden parachute clauses, allowing executives to receive huge compensation after being fired or leaving their positions. Under this mechanism, the relationship between corporate executives and the company and employees has become increasingly alienated, and they are not eager to discover and solve problems.

另一方面，为了抵御资本市场的恶意收购，美国大企业争相用高薪聘请高管，而且设置了金色降落伞条款，让高管被解聘或离开岗位后仍能获取巨额补偿。在这种机制下，企业高管与企业和员工的关系越发背离和疏远，发现并解决问题的态度并不迫切。

In 2023, Calhoun received approximately $32.7 million in compensation, an increase of approximately 45% from 2022. In stark contrast, Boeing has been losing money since 2019.

2023年,卡尔霍恩获得了约3270万美元的薪酬,较2022年提高约45%。与之形成鲜明对比的是，波音从2019年以来一直亏损。

In fact, the average salary of American executives is soaring at the fastest rate in 14 years, and Calhoun is not the most special one. He has announced his resignation at the end of this year, and whether Boeing can get rid of the scandal is not so important to him.

其实，美国高管的平均薪酬正以14年来最快速度猛涨，卡尔霍恩不是最特殊的一个。他已宣布今年底离职，波音能否从丑闻中摆脱出来对他来说并不那么重要。

Another special feature of Boeing is that its main business consists of three parts, in addition to commercial aircraft and global services, there is also the Boeing Defense, Space and Security Group related to the military industry. This is the territory of the military industry, and not everyone can touch it.

波音的另一个特殊性在于，其主营业务由三块组成，除商用飞机和全球服务外，还有与军工相关的波音防务、空间与安全集团。这是军工业的地盘，并非谁都能触碰。

Therefore, although the June 18 hearing was embarrassing for Boeing and Calhoun, it was actually just scratching the surface. Under the protection of a series of various "umbrellas", it is impossible for a "whistleblower" alone to uncover Boeing's inside story.

因此，尽管6月18日的听证会让波音和卡尔霍恩颇为难堪，但它实际上只是触及了表面。在一系列各种“伞”的保护下，仅靠“吹哨人”，不可能揭开波音的内幕。