PHIL 3109 - R6 09/12/2012 The Crash of Valuejet Flight 592 and the Hurricane Katrina Case The BART

case can be summarized as a case where three engineers employed to work on establishment of a public transit system had observed that some of the work being done on the system was being conducted in an unprofessional and dangerous manner. The three engineers expressed their concerns to their superiors, who in tern shrugged them off. The engineers later took their concerns to the board of directors; after some deliberation the board decided to reject the concerns, and the three engineers were subsequently fired. Shortly after the transit system went into operation, a train overran a station, which resulted in the injury of several passengers. The state launched an investigation and found that there had indeed been a lot of poor engineering design. The engineers filed suit against BART, but settled out of court. These are the facts of the case. In the group discussion on this case, it was first agreed upon that the three engineers had acted in an ethical way, and that it would have been unethical not to have expressed their concerns. This is because an engineer must put public safety first. It was also agreed upon that the poor engineering that resulted in the injury of the passengers, and the firing of the whistleblowers are two separate, but related, ethical issues. Where members of the group differed in opinion was with who is responsible. Some argued that it was the responsibility of the managers, while others argued that it was the managers obligation to make profit for their company, and were somehow excused, thus placing blame on the government for not having stricter regulation. In my opinion, the blame falls on the managers and board of directors, as they are expected to deliver a product to the public that is reasonably safe. It is reasonable to not expect a passenger train to crash, just as it is reasonable to expect children toys not to contain lead paint or other harmful chemicals; in both of these cases the manufacture is responsible. Because they are not experts in the field of engineering, they should have listed to their engineers, investigated the concerns, and taken action to correct the design flaws, this was not done. Furthermore, the company should not have fired their engineers for doing their job in looking out for public safety. This was wrong on many different levels. The government is not to blame in this case. There is a definite place for government regulations, in this case, however, the government was being used as a scapegoat by some of the members of the group discussion. No amount of oversight will stop all unethical behavior, nor will more regulation. It was already implied that the design was unsafe, and thus did not conform to code. Another issue that was not looked at, was that there was no one standing up for the engineers--or only minimally. It is a little surprising that as recently as the 1970s there were no whistleblower protection laws in place--this seems to be implied in the text. It is also disturbing that the professional organizations did not stand up for the engineers, and only minimally so for the profession. A possible solution for this case would to have had the professional associations back the engineers through a lawsuit against BART, there would have been a legal precedent set, the engineers would have been compensated for their troubles, and the company would have been forced to take responsibility. Granted, this would not even be being discussed, if the company had acted responsibly when the engineers first expressed

their concerns. That is not what happened in this case, but we have learned from this and other cases. There are now laws in place to protect whistle blowers, and the professional societies now take a more active role in standing up for engineers. This has lead to more safety for the public as well.