May 5, 2026 • 48 mins
Boeing used to be one of the most respected engineering firms in the world. Then it changed its focus from making great airplanes to increasing its stock value. The result was the 737-MAX, a plane that took the lives of 346 people in two avoidable crashes.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and we are just flying the friendly skies with
our co pilot Jerry and our other copilot God. And
this is stuff you should know. I thought it was
dog Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, Well before we get going, there is kind of
an exciting thing we need to mention. And we're gonna
mention this. You know, you're probably gonna get sick of
us talking about it. But stuff you should know is
going on a cruise, Yeah, sea cruise, and not just
like so long, suckers, we're going on vacation, right, it's
like a stuff cruise with other like stuff they don't
(00:49):
want you to know is going to be there. We're
doing our live podcast on board and it's like, hey,
stuff you should know listeners, Come come cruise with us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, come cruise with us. I think that's the message
that we're out right now. Is on Virgin Voyages. It's
just pretty swank, and it's October second to the seventh.
It's five day cruise from New York City to Bermuda
and back. Even they bring you back to your car.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I think I think that's kind of key. Yeah, it's
an adults only thing, yep. And I think the name
of it is the Big Apple to Bermuda Cruise. And yeah,
it's gonna be a lot of fun. So you know,
like I said, we're doing our live podcast and we're
gonna be doing some other fun events that they haven't
told us about yet. The feeling will be like trivia
and stuff like that. But Jerry is going, and that's
(01:36):
reason enough to sign up. I think.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, you can verify in person that Jerry is.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's right. You might be able to rub some suntan
lotion on her back too.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
So where do people go to sign up for this
sea cruise?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, you know what I would do. I think we're
gonna have some like super specific information coming, but just
get on your search engine and check out stuff at
sea Virgin Voyages and that'll direct you. I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I can't wait either. We'll see all of you
in October on the high seas.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's right. This episode is not about ships. Actually, it's
about a plane.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Which is technically a ship. It's an airship.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
An airship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
To say it. Yeah, that's how most people say it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm trying to watch what I say about this one
because it's pretty touchy.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It is touchy, but it's just such a shameful chapter
in the history of what was long regarded one of
the best engineering firms in the world, the Boeing Corporation.
They made great airplanes, They were very innovative, they made
very safe airplanes. They cared about the details. They put
engineering standards before profit, and all of that just got
(02:45):
wiped out in the course of a few years, from
about two thoy eighteen to nineteen. All of it just
wentroop when it came to light that they had flip
flopped that a few years before and profits now came
before standards.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, you know, we'll talk about in more detail, but
you know, the end result, as everybody knows at this point,
is two of their seven thirty seven Max planes crashed,
fell out of the sky. Yeah, and killed a lot
of people. Super sad and it's very sort of anger
inducing when you know the story behind it all. So
(03:19):
we're gonna detail that now starting. I guess we should
say that the seven thirty seven Max airplane that we're
talking about was a brand new fleet that was gonna
replace the old seven thirty sevens and compete with their rival, Airbus,
the Airbus A three twenty neo.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, and Airbus has long been Boeing's rival since Boeing
bought McDonald Douglass back in I think the nineties, and
so it's just been Boeing Airbus head to head to
supply the world with their airplanes and the seven thirty
seven Max. The reason that they were updating the seven
thirty sevens is one, like you said, these were old
seven thirty sevens that needed to be replaced. But also
(04:00):
so that Airbus A three twenty neo it was like
a step up, like it was the same kind of body,
like I think a narrow body is what it's called
narrowbody mid sized plane as the seven thirty seven. So
companies now had an option they could be like, well,
we're going to go with this Airbus instead of replacing
the Bowings with Boeings. So Boeing said, good god, we've
(04:21):
got to get out there and give them something that
they're going to want. Besides this A three twenty neo.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, for sure, I think should should we save talk
of the actual incidents untill later, I.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Think just mentioning that they happened was enough for now.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
All right, Well, what you're gonna hear is gonna infuriate
you a little bit. It's also gonna shine a bit
of a light on some of the which will also
infuriate you. Just some of the systemic problems with the
airline industry as a whole and how these planes are
approved for being safe to fly in the sky. And
the FAA is going to take some hits deservedly. But
(04:59):
we should probably start out by talking about Boeing. You know,
you mentioned that they were, you know, dedicated to the
top notch engineering for decades and decades, but starting in
the nineties that started to change, right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, there was a CEO that kind of kicked it
all off. His name was Philip Condit, and in nineteen
ninety seven he said, we're going to acquire McDonald douglas.
Like I said, up to that point, McDonald douglas was
also a neck and neck competitor with Boeing, But rather
than making their name as also like a great engineering
(05:35):
firm with innovation and a mind to safety, McDonald douglas
is like, no, we're just going to cut costs Yeah,
Whereas Boeing, if they were going to design a new plane,
or if they were going to come up with a
new plane, they would start from scratch and design a
new plane and probably set all the industry standards for
decades to follow. What McDonald Douglas did was they would
(05:56):
design a plane and then they would go back to
it over a decade and decad decade after decade and
just kind of revamp it and update. Yet that is
essentially what you call clue g. It can be done,
obviously because they were doing it, but it is so
much worse than designing a new plane from scratch. It's
just it costs a lot less and it takes a
(06:17):
lot less time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, because over those decades, over those thirty to forty years,
there have been so many innovations in flight technology that, like,
you could build a really great airplane from the ground
up if that's what you wanted to do. We should
mention that all of that. Did you name that first
CEO from ninety seven, Yeah, Philip Condit, Okay, so he
was the first guy. The other thing that he did,
(06:41):
and this was a little bit later, this was I
think four years after he was named CEO he he
didn't split up Boeing like a breakup, but he split
them up physically, and that he moved their headquarters from
their longtime home in Seattle to Chicago. And he did
this for allows three million bucks a year. It was
(07:01):
sixty million dollars in state and local tax credit over
a twenty year period. Three million bucks a year for
a company like this is like chicken scratch.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So it was a bit of a head scratcher move
because you had a company that had everything under one
roof in Seattle, and now you had these Seattle based
engineers working there, and you had the C suite in Chicago.
And that's anytime that happens that. I mean, I know
people can work remotely and stuff like that, but it
seemed like a great idea to have everything there in Seattle.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah. And plus up to that point, with the executives
and the decision makers working very closely with like the
engineers and product division, those engineers knew the executives, they
had a working relationship with them, so they felt comfortable
saying like, I don't really think we should do that
because it's going to make the plane fall out of
the sky and the executives would listen, this is like
they didn't know these people anymore. It just got separated.
(07:56):
And this transition really kind of became complete when a
guy named Harry Stone Cipher took over from Philip Condit
in two thousand and three. He became CEO. He used
to be a general electric, but he was most recently
with McDonald douglas. And even though that Boeing acquired McDonald douglas,
McDonald douglas influenced Boeing's culture. Boeing's culture became that same
(08:19):
cost cutting like focus, shareholder holder verse. Yes, exactly, that
kind of focus that became what Boeing adopted after guys
like Kerry stone Cipher took over Boeing.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, he has a quote he been uh he said
when people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that
was the intent, so that so that it is run
like a business rather than a great engineering firm. And
that's one of those quotes where I was like, bro,
you just said that out loud to the press, Like right,
no one wants to hear that. Yeah, well, I guess
shareholders did, but exactly everyone else the public at large
(08:55):
ones safe planes that don't fall out of the sky.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, but he was putting a signal out, a bats
signal of sort saying like, hey, investors, come invest in Boeing,
We're gonna make a of course, some money for you.
And they started to The next CEO is Jim McNerney,
and he was the one who you can really put
the most most of the blame for the design of
(09:18):
the seven thirty seven Max from him onward. Essentially every
single CEO had some sort of direct personal blame for
what happened, but he was the one who was like,
we need to get this plane out, We need to
get it out fast, we need to cut every corner
we possibly can to save time and money. Go.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah. So he ran the company until twenty fifteen, so
he oversaws sort of all of that planning and development basically.
And then after that CEO, Man, I just hate saying
that CEO over and over a bad days in my mouth.
The new guy's name was Dennis Muhlenberg, and he, you know,
obviously inherited quite a mess after what we're about to
(10:00):
talk about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, So, like I said, like these guys were saying, like,
come on, we got to get going, Like Airbus is
already several steps ahead, and we need to get this
thing out so people can start ordering before Airbus just
sucks all of the market share out of US. I
saw that they put countdown clocks for different deadlines all
throughout the office, in meeting rooms, conference rooms, there was
(10:22):
constantly a clock counting down while you were at work. Yeah,
engineers got the impression. And sometimes we're told directly like
keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
The head of the project for the seven thirty seven
Max people didn't report directly to them anymore. They reported
to their heads, and their heads may or may not
have told that project manager about any problems that came up.
So this whole rushed project also had like an aura
of just keep your mouth shut, do not do anything
to delay this.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, as we'll see later,
there were whistleblowers. But when it takes a like somebody
requesting whistleblow or protection to come forward, especially with I
mean in any corporation, but especially when it's something that's
dealing with like public safety, that's not how it should be.
You know, you should be able to to say hey,
at your work, this is without fear of being of
(11:13):
a reprisal. You know, like, we're not doing the right
thing here, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And it used to be you didn't even need to
whistle blow. You would go to the executives and be like, hey,
this is a real problem, this is not safe, and
they would listen to you. That wasn't the case anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
with the design phase right after this. All right, we're back.
(11:52):
I know we talked a little bit at first about
how they decided to sort of revamp this decade's old
fleet design wise, instead of starting from scratch with all
this great new technology. But that's what they did. They
took that seven thirty seven body, they made a lot
of changes, It added bigger engines. And one of the
things that was the result, and they knew this by
(12:13):
twenty twelve, basically was that they had created a problem,
a balance problem, whereas at certain speeds you could potentially
go into a stall because the airplane's nose drifted upward.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, because they basically took the same plane and just
put giant engines that the plane was never designed for,
and it just knocked it out of balance. Right, And
you would say, well, why didn't they just move the wings.
There was a good reason they didn't move the wings,
because the more changes you make to an airplane, the
more likely it is that all the pilots at all
(12:46):
the different airlines that fly that plane are going to
need updated training. Right, the FA will require it. Airlines
don't like that. That's an added cost to the plane
you're selling them, So they did. They bent themselves into
pretzels trying to avoid making actual big changes. They just tried.
(13:07):
They were playing whack a mole with all the problems
that came up, with an eye toward not actually doing
the one thing that would solved the problem, which is
redesigned the wings. So what they came up with instead
was some software that would take over and make the
nose go back level whenever it got out of a
suitable angle of attack.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
It's called yeah, it's called the And this is the
real sort of well I was going to say the
real villain, but the real villains were the humans behind
this decision. But we're talking about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System the MCAS, and this thing, like you said, I
don't know if it was clear, but it literally takes
over controls of the plane and takes like supposedly takes
(13:52):
care of the issue for the pilot instead of saying like, hey,
you know, let's redesign this plane or at least train
these pilots to rectify this on their own with with
their hands on on the wheel. Now, what's that thing.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Called the stick? I think they call it the stick?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Is it the stick in big planes too? Probably, I'm
pretty sure, just a larger stick. Yeah, the big on
the truck, the big stick. They said, we designed this
wizbang software that's going to do that for you. And
when they went around to test flight mode, I think
it was like twenty sixteen, the MCAS was still a
(14:29):
pretty small part of this whole thing, but it was
part of the aircraft.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, And then they started testing this new design and
simulators and I know, at least once, I think in
twenty twelve, they the I think the head test pilot
for Boeing took ten seconds to override the mcast and
crashed and they were like, oh, okay, we need to
keep working on this. So again they're back to playing
(14:53):
whack a mole. Like the band aid that they put
on the issue of the imbalance, which was the software
now has its own so now they're fixing those, and
then that would bring up more bugs and more bugs,
so they had to fix those and those and those,
And this was where the design for the Boeing seven
thirty seven Max like really started to get out of hand.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, for sure, because like I said, it was a
pretty small part of the system at first. It had
kind of that one function I think initially, or was
supposed to. But by the time you're playing whack the mole,
it keeps growing and growing and you're like, well, then
the software will solve this problem, and then the software
should solve this problem, and all of a sudden as
it's interacting with these plane systems. It's a huge part
(15:36):
of flying this plane.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, and they had to integrate it with the existing software.
They couldn't redo the software or the flight controls or else. Again,
you have pilot training that you've just triggered, right, So
they were just basically hammering this thing into place as
best they could. The way that it finally worked was
there were two sensors on the nose that since the
(15:59):
angle of the plane right, and when the sensors sent
information saying, hey, this plane's at way too steep of
an angle, it could stall out if it goes any further.
If it goes any further up, the MCAST system literally,
like you said, took over the flight controls and then
leveled the plane back out. Right. There was a huge
(16:22):
issue that they made it. They designed it which still
befuddles engineers aerospace engineers today, so that only one of
those sensors saying the plane's angle was wrong could trigger
the MCAST. Like, there was no redundancy. So if one
of those sensors was faulty and the other was fine,
it didn't matter. The faulty one was going to tell
(16:44):
the MCAST to level out, even if the plane's angle
wasn't actually an issue.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, like the whole idea there is, if one sensor
goes off, you want to have that other sensor that
aligns with it and says, yeah, we're getting the same
readings or whatever, which is you know, it's that backup,
it's that redundancy that you need. You need that matching
data before that thing engages itself. So they said, you
know what, we've done our calculations, and we think it's
(17:13):
much simpler this way, and the risk of catastrophic failure
is quote almost inconceivable. Yeah, I think they figured the
probability was one per two hundred and twenty three trillion
hours of flight. So they said, you know what, we
don't need this redundancy, it's not necessary.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Which is still it's just insane, like that is a
basic principle. Redundancy is a basic principle of any engineering, right,
And it's just I don't I still couldn't find why
they made that decision, why it was so much harder
for that to have the sensors have to match. It's
just nuts. But as we'll see, somebody clearly forgot to
carry the one because that that calculation they came up
(17:50):
with for that probability was not yeah, correctrect So there
was another thing that they did. They didn't tell anybody
about the mcast.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, this is the one that really gets me.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
They created this was brand new. No one had ever
created something like the mcast before. It wasn't like they
took an existing software and just kind of redesigned it.
They made new software to do a brand new thing
that hadn't been done before. And then they didn't tell
anyone about it. And again, just want to reiterate, the
MCAST took over the controls from the pilot. If you
(18:25):
were the pilot, you were no longer in control of
the plane while the MCAST was bringing the nose back
down to a more suitable angle of attack. Imagine that
happening and you having no idea what's going on because
you don't know the MCAST exists.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, and all of this is because they don't want
to make the again, make the plane less appealing to
buyers to airlines because they're gonna have to invest a
lot of money in like pilot retraining and even as
simple things as like you know, flight manuals and stuff
like that. Yeah, supposedly, I mean, it was reported at
least that Boeing made a deal with Southwest Air that said, hey,
(19:01):
if you buy enough planes from us, and if you
don't require your special training for the pilots, like save
yourself some money, we'll give you a discount on these planes.
And Boeing lobbied the FAA, like actively lobbied them to
allow them not to make any mention of the MCST
in the manual, like we don't even want this in
the flight manual, And the FAA said.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Sure, Yeah, they said, okay, Boeing told them that it
was such a minor part of an already existing system,
I think the existing air speed sensor system, that it
was not worth mentioning, and the FAA, like you said,
they're like, sure, that's fine. They also didn't even put
an indicator light for it in there. That's how secret
they kept this thing, so you would have no idea
(19:45):
it was on right, So this was like that was
you might be stunned that the FAA just went along
with that. It also shows you that they didn't They
had no idea what the m cast was. They didn't
go and look and say, well, let us see if
it's actually important or not tell us what this thing is.
Later on, FAA officials, some of them would testify they
(20:07):
didn't get the mcast, they didn't understand what it was,
and they really were encouraged not to ask too many questions,
so they just said, sure, if you guys don't think
that it's worth mentioning, we won't make you.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah for sure, and you know this is all you know,
how I mentioned the beginning part of the systemic failures
of just how things work, So we should talk a
little bit about that. As far as the FAA is concerned,
because when they were formed in nineteen fifty eight, it
was pretty clear right out of the gate that their
kind of co mandates could often be in conflict with
(20:40):
one another, which was to promote the interest of the
aviation industry and very important to promote the safety of
the flying public. So they knew pretty quickly that like
those like I said, those don't always align. So Congress
in I think nineteen sixty seven said, all right, maybe
we should have a new agency that really guides the
safety side. So they created National Transportation Safety Board, and
(21:02):
they're like, they'll they'll keep everybody safe and recommend regulations
to the FAA to enforce, but they can't demand that.
The FAA has never had to do the things that
they're suggested to do.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Right, it's just the NTSB is looking out for the
safety but the FAA doesn't have to enact it because
again that might conflict with the interests of the aviation industry.
And that stuck out to me, Chuck, that the safety
of the flying public isn't always in the interests of
the aviation industry. It should one hundred percent of the
time be in the interests of the aviation industry. Yeah,
(21:39):
that's just my take, hot take.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
But what ended up happening was the FAA said, all right, well,
you know, we're good at the industry stuff, so why
don't we just let Boeing, like they know planes, why
don't we let them handle their own certification process. And
it wasn't. I mean, that seems to be sort of
standard practice. It wasn't like some big exception was made, right.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah. No, they have a name for it, organizational designation authorization.
The FAA can say, like you just said, you know
a lot about what we want and what we require.
We're just going to let you go through and verify
that all this stuff adheres to FAA requirements and guidelines,
and then you come back and tell us if it does.
You plane maker, certify your own plane and tell us
(22:22):
if we should certify it in turn. And that's exactly
what it is. That's that process.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, they're like, hey, here's what you do. Just do
it all, then send me an email that just says
all good.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Right, write an email to the president, but like it's
from me, and then I'll sign it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So this is part of a bigger problem that actually
has a name. It's called regulatory capture, and it's this
idea that when people are working closely together, like the
FAA works closely with the airline industry and Boeing, that
they know, they know these people, and they end up
(23:02):
I don't want to necessarily say sighting, but they end
up more sympathetic to the industry side than the public
that they're supposed to be protecting because they don't work
with the public at large every day. They work with
these people every day exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That's the same reason why you should avoid ever agreeing
to mediation instead of a lawsuit, because the mediators typically,
even though they won't say they do, they will typically
work for the people paying them, and the chances of
your company that say you're going into mediation with hiring
them again are far greater than you ever hiring them.
(23:41):
It's not exactly the same thing, but it's they have
a working relationship that just can't be avoided, and that
also is supported by another issue called the revolving door.
Regulatory capture is very much supported by the revolving door
and vice versa, which is you are a friendly regulated
and the company you're regulating later on is like, hey,
(24:04):
we want to hire you. We think you've done a
great job, and we want you to come work for
us for gobs of money. And it can go the
other way too. A friendly colleague can go become a regulator,
and you know, you just kind of expect them to
turn a blind eye when you need them to. That's
just a huge problem, especially when you're talking about huge
like life and death stuff like designing and certifying airplanes
(24:29):
or you know, pharmaceutical makers and the FDA. They're frequently
talked about as regulatory capture and a revolving door.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. I mean, I'm just a dummy podcaster, so I
don't know how any of this stuff works. But it
seems to me like there should be like a rule
or a law that says, you know, choose your path,
Like you can't go work for the FAA for ten
years and then go work for Boeing right after that
with some plumb job or some pharmaceutical company and then
(24:58):
you go work for the FDA. Like it's just such
an obvious conflict, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, I don't remember if you and I recorded the
episode on it or not. I feel like we did
years back. I definitely wrote an article about this, and
people have proposed that over the years. I think three
years is typically the average, which makes sense, Like a
lot of people change at a company in three years,
so that would probably actually do it. But it's just
(25:23):
like just added to the pile of problems that we
have to solve to get things on track around here.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I propose we take a sort of a quicker break
here than we normally would because we've got the crashes
coming up. And after that, it's you know, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I agree?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Okay, I'm not quite sure. I was trying to say there,
but still, we'll be right back and we'll talk about
what happened with these planes right after this.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Okay, chuck, So we're back, and we're gonna go back
to March twenty seventeen, and I guess this month is
when the FAA certified the seven thirty seven Max eight
to fly. A few months later, the Max nine was
certified to fly, and both of these planes, I think
they were the first seven thirty seven Maxes to hit
(26:29):
the skies. And one thing you want to point out
is when the FAA certifies a new plane to fly,
they and the European the EU Aviation Authority they're basically
their stamps tell the rest of the world like, these
planes are fine, you can buy them and fly them,
you can put them into your airline fleet. Other countries
(26:52):
have their own aviation authority, sure, but they do not
have the resources that like the FAA or the EU's
Aviation Authority have, and so they're relied upon, Like their
credibility is important worldwide. So this is why. One reason
also it was such a big deal that the fa
just completely fell down on the job.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, because they're supposed to be the gold standards worldwide,
like you said.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
So.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
On October twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, Lion Air flight it
was the seven thirty seven Max eight crashed into the
Java Sea very shortly after takeoff from Indonesia, and the
flight crew communicated with air traffic control that basically they
were having trouble with flight control, they were having trouble
(27:38):
with their altitude, and then the plane just disappears from radar,
and I think it was about thirteen minutes later it
plunged into the Java See at about four hundred miles
an hour and killed all one hundred and eighty nine
people on board.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. Yeah, and all of this was I think, like
you said, thirteen minutes after the plane took off. So
that angle of attack thing. We know enough now to
know what was going on. At the time, no one
had any idea what was going on, and so Boeing said, oh,
there's this thing called the mcast that we put in.
(28:12):
Just here's some information about it, and if anything like
this ever happens to you, here's the procedure to override
it and you'll be all good. Just it was still
it was pilot error, everybody. That's that's what the problem was.
That's what Boeing blamed it on.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, so that was crash number one. Then, I guess
about five months later, in March of twenty nineteen, an
Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed near at Geer, Ethiopia. This was
six minutes after takeoff, and all one hundred and fifty
seven passengers and crew obviously on board, died.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And that what made that crash even worse, Chuck, is
that those airline pilots followed that procedure that Boeing had
told the world about after the Lion airflight a few
months before, and it still didn't work because there was
a software glitch with the mcass and it kept reactivating
and reactivating and they couldn't override it, and that's when
(29:09):
it crashed. So even with this workaround that Boeing came
up with, it still wasn't fixing the problem. And after
that second crash, it was quite clear that Boeing had
screwed up royally, and also that the FAA had let
them do that and still certified these planes that were
way too dangerous to carry human beings.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, the whole seven thirty seven Max fleet was grounded
at that point for twenty months. It was the biggest
sort of grounding like that in aviation history. It took
out four hundred and fifty planes from the sky, and
you know, its sindrils ran all throughout the airline industry,
like travel stock prices, obviously Southwest. You know I mentioned
(29:51):
like supposedly having that better deal, they had to ground
I think thirty of their fifty eight plane stop.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Fleet, fleet, that's the word, the fleet with the sticks,
that's right. I mean, it's clear I'm not an aviator,
you guys. I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone,
but governing bodies really kind of came in quickly. After
that point, they launched investigations not just into Boeing but
also into the FAA. And you know, they did the
thing you do, which you start issuing statements like that
(30:21):
are really angry, and then there are press releases and
there are denials, and then CEOs come and go. Obviously,
lawsuits and at least one criminal charge would come and
regulatory actions. But while this is going on, there's still
like problems with this plane.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah. And the reason they grounded all seven thirty seven
max is everywhere in the world for twenty months. It
was supposed to be a very short time, but it
turned out to be twenty months is because these were
brand new planes that dropped out of the sky. Remember
that one in two hundred and thirty two trillion chants
of the function, this is two. Yeah. The the Lion
(31:03):
air plane had eight hundred hours of flight time. The
Ethiopian air had just thirteen hundred and thirty hours. Yeah,
so this happened two times in just twenty one hundred
and thirty flight hours.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Boy, there's some some Josh Clark matth in there that
we just edited out, chuck, right.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So in October twenty eighteen, this is a year after
that Lion Air crash, the CEO of who I mentioned
earlier at the time, Dennis Muhlenberg, was called before Congress,
which is what you do. You got to take your
lumps and go in there and get yelled at, basically,
and the whole time he's insisting the plane is safe
and in that hearing and I remember watching some of
(31:41):
this stuff. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said after that second crash,
he met with Boeing reps in his office and they
said what Josh Clark would say one day is that
it was pilot air, which like, that's just complete fabrication.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, I mean they yeah, it's just so scummy, you know,
to be that responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people,
terrible deaths, and then just to blame two people who
are for people I guess who are blameless, and that's
just I just think that's terrible. And you might say, well, okay,
what's wrong with Muhlenberg. He was the one who inherited
(32:17):
the problem. He's to blame because he didn't ground that
the seven thirty seven maxes. The FAA made Boeing do that,
so he had the option to do this. He had
the opportunity to and he didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously the FAA, we've been
pretty hard on here, and they were found responsible for
good reason. There was a twenty twenty congressional report that
said Boeing in the FAA jointly were responsible for these
two plane crashes. And the FAA this whole time is
insisting that it did the right thing. It's like, we,
(32:51):
you know, did everything like we were supposed to as
far as certification goes, but it seems to be a
systemic thing where and stepped forward before this and said,
you can't allow them to certify themselves because they may
have been telling the truth when they said they follow
a procedure, but the procedure was wrong exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah. So when that report came out, the shares of
bow of Boeing plummeted as far as fines go and
actual money that they had to shell out from this. Yeah,
that FA fined Boeing seventeen million dollars in twenty twenty one,
seventeen million with an m yeah, for using unapproved or
(33:33):
non conforming parts or mislabeling the parts. Neither of these
those things had anything to do with the crashes. So
Boeing was never fined for those two crashes by the FAA.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, was that just them trying to be like, hey,
let's slap them with something so the public sees that
had like that's.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
My interpretation, Yes, And that's the the little pussy cat
bite that they came up with, right, Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow? Sure.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The other thing is is the FAA didn't start issuing
penalties like that until the Justice Department filed suit against
Boeing for defrauding the United States government by saying this
thing is fine, you can go ahead and certify at FAA.
And there was actually a criminal misconduct facet to the
whole thing as well. And I think Boeing negotiated a
(34:25):
two point five billion dollar payment are fine to the
United States to basically say like, just here, make this
go away. Here's some money. They also had to pay
eight point three billion dollars to the airlines and then
man the victims families all I think three hundred and
forty five victims families. There was one hundred million dollar
(34:47):
pot set aside for them as part of this negotiated
agreement with the Justice Department. That's the thing that I
saw though. When I was looking that up, chuck on
like like a Google search or whatever. Yeah, the reporting
on it said that Boeing is dedicating one hundred million
dollars to victims. Families Almost across the board, all of
(35:09):
the rere like they weren't forced to. It's disgusting because
it also shows that all of these outlets were basically
just copying the Boeing press release.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, you did mention a criminal charge.
There was one. There was one individual that faced criminal charges.
It was a former lead technical pilot named Mark Forlkner,
and he is the guy who convinced the FAA that
the MCST was not something worthy of including in the
(35:38):
flight manual. I think it was exposed later on in
internal emails. He was frustrated about mcast in the email
and he said, quote I basically lied to the FAA
end quote. And he was found not guilty of defrauding
federal regulators. And that was that was the only person
to be brought up on criminal charges.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah. After that, the JAY said, Okay, we're closing this case.
It's done. As you can imagine, the families of the
victims were not at all happy with any of this. Yeah,
so the whole thing put to rest. Everybody's moving on.
This is what was that twenty twenty one, I think
when that whole thing got settled. Yeah, And then three
(36:22):
years later, less than three years later, there was another
catastrophic incident with another Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah. And I remember when this one happened, after all
the other stuff, it was just like what is because
I mean, I feel like there was this weird certain
amount of national pride with Boeing even at one point,
like I remember growing up hearing about like Boeing, like
this great company of engineers, like these brilliant people. And
then by the time this happened in twenty twenty four,
(36:52):
I'm not even in like a plane head, and I
was like, what is happening with this like once great company?
And that's when Alaska Airlines flight depressurized rapidly at sixteen
thousand feet because a door plug blew out and there
was a hole in the side of the plane.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah. Door plug is essentially a panel that covers an
unused emergency exit, and that panel came off, blew off,
and just by total luck or the grace of God,
depending on your view, of what's going on behind the universe.
There was nobody seated right there. Yeah, And the reason
(37:28):
why this was lucky is because parts of the seats
were sucked out, and there would be a good chance
that a human sitting in one of those seats would
have been sucked out. At sixteen thousand feet, it's mind
boggling that nobody was killed or I think seriously injured.
Even than that. It's just it was it could have
been so bad and lucky for Boeing it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah. Initial reports intigated that they couldn't find the bolts
that were to hold that plug in place, and then
apparently there were signs that they never maybe there were
never bolts in place to begin with, and that a
Boeing worker removed that door plug for some routine maintenance
didn't put the bolts back in. At this point, the
FAA is like, all right, this can't you know? This
(38:16):
is such a public thing. After the disaster of the
two crashes, they grounded the planes again. They said, quote,
this should never have happened and it cannot happen again.
And when they did follow up investigations, it, I mean,
it seemed kind of like a clown show going on
at Spirit Aero Systems that like the factory where these
(38:36):
things were being put together.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
One of their suppliers, Yeah, this was not good a
good look. There were assemblers who were in charge of
putting plane stuff together. They were jump up and down
on airplane parts and like kick it into place to
make the drill holes line up the way that they
should a part like that for something like an airplane,
and the Boeing of yesteryear would have immediately been sent
(38:59):
back and supplier would have been sweating that they were
going to get dropped for somebody else. That's not the case,
or that certainly wasn't the case with their vendor. Spirit.
There were other problems that also came up with the
Max too that were didn't even have anything to do
with the mcast, but were still both potentially catastrophic themselves.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, there was an air pressure sensor that seems pretty
vital to me as a nonpilot that would ensure that
pilots had enough air to not lose consciousness. I guess
in the event of something better, it.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Should be important to you as a passenger.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Too, Yeah, it is. They also found loose bolts in
the rudder system. And by this point, like it's pretty
obvious that the FAA was complicit and this whole sort
of shoddy operation going down with the seven thirty seven Max.
They were non compliant with FAA regulations. And if the
(39:55):
FAA's saying they don't know about that, then that's on there.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
There was no argument or justification that FAA could put
forward that exonerated them in even a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, And here's the thing. Before that door plug blew out,
just before that, the FAA had gone to Congress and said, hey,
I think it's all good now, can we go back
to letting Boeing certify their own planes? And then after
that door blowout they or plug blowout, they withdrew that request.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
And this is the last CEO, Dave Calhoun. The reason
he was a problem or an issue as well is
because he didn't change Boeing enough for this door plug
incident to not happen. So there was there were two
high profile whistleblower deaths. Thirty two people came forward to
seek whistleblower federal protection to complain against Boeing. Two of
(40:50):
them died, and it turns out both of them died well,
one died by suicide, another one died of MRSA, so
I guess natural disease. But the guy who died by suicide,
of course, there was a conspiracy theory that he was
actually murraid. He had just given a deposition in Charleston
when he was found dead of a gunshot wound in
(41:12):
his truck in a holiday in parking lot where he
was staying after giving that deposition. And apparently there's all
sorts of evidence, including CCTV or security camera footage that
show that this was suicide. The point is that doesn't
exonerate Boeing in his suicide note, he actually named Boeing
(41:32):
as a huge reason for this, because they ruined his life.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
He said, yeah, he requested to be buried face down
so they could quote kiss his ass.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So uh yeah, it very very sad obviously. So they
are identifying all these issues with the seven thirty seven MAX.
The most scathing stuff obviously would come from the NTSB
because their separate from the AAA, and they basically have
taken to bypassing the FAA by issuing their own safety
(42:03):
notices directly and not like going through them. Yeah, and
I think in June twenty twenty five. Just last year,
they issued a bulletin of a possible engine problem on
the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like airlines should should alert you.
I know they're not going to, but I feel like
they should give you a choice, like this is a
seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Well you can see what plane it is like when
you book the flight.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, that they switch them sometimes too.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna start looking though, man, after this, Oh.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I do, I do. I don't think I've ever been
on board a Max, but I feel like it's just
the roll of the dice every time, you know.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, It's something I'm paying a lot
more attention to now. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
We also can't not mention another thing that happened after
the Alaska Airline blowout that had nothing to do with
their airline division or airplane division, but still was Boeing
and it was a terrible look. It was an aerospace thing.
When the star Liner test flight to the ISS did
(43:09):
not go very well.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, they, I mean, there were a lot of failures there.
We're not going to get into all of them, but
it was a test flight carrying a couple of astronauts
to the ISS and they ended up stuck there. I
think it was supposed to be a little more than
a week and it turned into nine months and SpaceX
had to go get them.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
It's just not a good look, right, it's not. I mean,
luckily Wilmore and Williams, the two astronauts made it back
to Earth safely, and the star Liner uncrude remotely controlled
made it back to Earth safely. But still it's just
like your stock price goes down every time. And the
reason I mentioned it is because every step of the
(43:48):
way with the seven thirty seven Max, all of it
followed that like psychopathic corporate logic, where the shareholder's return
on investment is the most important thing. It is more
important in morality, safety, practicality, sensibility, anything, right. And so
the whole like sad trombone like twist, I guess is
(44:12):
that the seven thirty seven Max cost Boeing investors eighty
seven billion dollars right over the six years from twenty
eighteen to twenty twenty four. It didn't make them money.
It cost them money in share price drops over and
over and over again, because one thing after another just
kept going and Airbus was eating Boeing's lunch all of
(44:35):
these years too.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, it's a I mean there's a lesson in there.
No one will heat it, of course, but there's a lesson.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yes there is, Chuck, You got anything else?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
I got nothing else. I mean, they're they're still out there, right,
the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, they got recertified by the FAA. I think the
last one was towed out of groundage. I don't know
if that's the word or not the union saying. And
it was declared ready for delivery to China on August
twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. So there is a very
good chance that you will fly on a seven thirty
seven Max at some point in your life if you
(45:12):
fly a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Oh, and also just real quick, they also have the
Max seven and the Max nine are the newest ones,
and they're having trouble getting those certified because they're having
an issue that they are can't figure out how to
fix yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Software is a great thing. So I'm not bagging on
the software industry, but like, I have a car that
has like a lot of newer cars are like very
software based, as a lot of people know. Yeah, and
sometimes it'll just do something.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, we had our brick once.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, it happens. I've seen it happen in my own car,
and like, that's not a plane with hundreds of passengers,
you know, No.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No, thankfully we were parked and couldn't get it back on.
But yeah, I can't imagine how terrifying that would be
if if it happened while you were driving, you know. Yeah,
we should also say talking about software, it was widely
reported that Boeing had hired had outsourced their software coding
to Indian companies to curry favor with India so they
could sell more jets there. That's true. I think they
(46:15):
were recent college graduates who were being paid nine dollars
an hour, who were entrusted with very important software stuff.
But none of them worked on the mcast, right, which
was the thing that caused those two crashes.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Obvious, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I think that's it for the seven thirty seven. Max.
I got to dedicate this one to my dad because
he's the one who gave me my interest in engineering,
because he was an engineer.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
All these yehes, I knew that that's great.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Well, since Chuck said that was great that I just
dedicated this episode to my dad as foretold in two
thousand and eight. We just opened listener mail here in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
All right, this is from Alexa from Seattle. It's a
short and suitet. Hey, guys, just wanted to add to
the topic of the cherry blossom trees. And I remember
when we recorded this, I was like, I know, there's
some places that are known for their cherry blossoms that
were not going to mention, and luckily Alexa wrote in
Seattle loves their cherry blossoms, guys. The quad at you
(47:14):
Dub is probably the most popular spot for cherry blossom viewing,
and it's always packed with people. All over the city.
You'll find cherry blossoms blooming and events themed around the
cherry blossoms, including food items and anime conventions. Nice cherry
blossoms bloom in the spring when we get random breaks
from the bleak winter weather, and it's absolutely beautiful. And Alexa,
(47:34):
I can confirm, but I think my first two trips
to Seattle were in spring and I got like the
best weather, and I think I saw cherry blossoms and
I was like, what's the deal with this place being gloomy?
Like this place is incredible.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I remember that too. I think we've done at least five,
maybe six shows there over the years, and this past
one in January was the first time I ever rained
while I was in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yeah, we got big time seatle on this last trip
we did.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We did that was smart to choose a Seattle one
because that's where Boeing's from, so that fits this one
very nicely.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That was from Alexa. That's right, Alexa, send email no thanks, Alexa,
Oh my god. If you want to be like if
you want to be like Alexa and send us an
email and have us thank you like you're a robot,
we will do that. All you have to do is
send your email off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and we are just flying the friendly skies with
our co pilot Jerry and our other copilot God. And
this is stuff you should know. I thought it was
dog Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, Well before we get going, there is kind of
an exciting thing we need to mention. And we're gonna
mention this. You know, you're probably gonna get sick of
us talking about it. But stuff you should know is
going on a cruise, Yeah, sea cruise, and not just
like so long, suckers, we're going on vacation, right, it's
like a stuff cruise with other like stuff they don't
(00:49):
want you to know is going to be there. We're
doing our live podcast on board and it's like, hey,
stuff you should know listeners, Come come cruise with us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, come cruise with us. I think that's the message
that we're out right now. Is on Virgin Voyages. It's
just pretty swank, and it's October second to the seventh.
It's five day cruise from New York City to Bermuda
and back. Even they bring you back to your car.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I think I think that's kind of key. Yeah, it's
an adults only thing, yep. And I think the name
of it is the Big Apple to Bermuda Cruise. And yeah,
it's gonna be a lot of fun. So you know,
like I said, we're doing our live podcast and we're
gonna be doing some other fun events that they haven't
told us about yet. The feeling will be like trivia
and stuff like that. But Jerry is going, and that's
(01:36):
reason enough to sign up. I think.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, you can verify in person that Jerry is.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's right. You might be able to rub some suntan
lotion on her back too.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
So where do people go to sign up for this
sea cruise?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, you know what I would do. I think we're
gonna have some like super specific information coming, but just
get on your search engine and check out stuff at
sea Virgin Voyages and that'll direct you. I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, I can't wait either. We'll see all of you
in October on the high seas.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's right. This episode is not about ships. Actually, it's
about a plane.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Which is technically a ship. It's an airship.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
An airship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
To say it. Yeah, that's how most people say it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm trying to watch what I say about this one
because it's pretty touchy.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It is touchy, but it's just such a shameful chapter
in the history of what was long regarded one of
the best engineering firms in the world, the Boeing Corporation.
They made great airplanes, They were very innovative, they made
very safe airplanes. They cared about the details. They put
engineering standards before profit, and all of that just got
(02:45):
wiped out in the course of a few years, from
about two thoy eighteen to nineteen. All of it just
wentroop when it came to light that they had flip
flopped that a few years before and profits now came
before standards.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, you know, we'll talk about in more detail, but
you know, the end result, as everybody knows at this point,
is two of their seven thirty seven Max planes crashed,
fell out of the sky. Yeah, and killed a lot
of people. Super sad and it's very sort of anger
inducing when you know the story behind it all. So
(03:19):
we're gonna detail that now starting. I guess we should
say that the seven thirty seven Max airplane that we're
talking about was a brand new fleet that was gonna
replace the old seven thirty sevens and compete with their rival, Airbus,
the Airbus A three twenty neo.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, and Airbus has long been Boeing's rival since Boeing
bought McDonald Douglass back in I think the nineties, and
so it's just been Boeing Airbus head to head to
supply the world with their airplanes and the seven thirty
seven Max. The reason that they were updating the seven
thirty sevens is one, like you said, these were old
seven thirty sevens that needed to be replaced. But also
(04:00):
so that Airbus A three twenty neo it was like
a step up, like it was the same kind of body,
like I think a narrow body is what it's called
narrowbody mid sized plane as the seven thirty seven. So
companies now had an option they could be like, well,
we're going to go with this Airbus instead of replacing
the Bowings with Boeings. So Boeing said, good god, we've
(04:21):
got to get out there and give them something that
they're going to want. Besides this A three twenty neo.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, for sure, I think should should we save talk
of the actual incidents untill later, I.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Think just mentioning that they happened was enough for now.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
All right, Well, what you're gonna hear is gonna infuriate
you a little bit. It's also gonna shine a bit
of a light on some of the which will also
infuriate you. Just some of the systemic problems with the
airline industry as a whole and how these planes are
approved for being safe to fly in the sky. And
the FAA is going to take some hits deservedly. But
(04:59):
we should probably start out by talking about Boeing. You know,
you mentioned that they were, you know, dedicated to the
top notch engineering for decades and decades, but starting in
the nineties that started to change, right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, there was a CEO that kind of kicked it
all off. His name was Philip Condit, and in nineteen
ninety seven he said, we're going to acquire McDonald douglas.
Like I said, up to that point, McDonald douglas was
also a neck and neck competitor with Boeing, But rather
than making their name as also like a great engineering
(05:35):
firm with innovation and a mind to safety, McDonald douglas
is like, no, we're just going to cut costs Yeah,
Whereas Boeing, if they were going to design a new plane,
or if they were going to come up with a
new plane, they would start from scratch and design a
new plane and probably set all the industry standards for
decades to follow. What McDonald Douglas did was they would
(05:56):
design a plane and then they would go back to
it over a decade and decad decade after decade and
just kind of revamp it and update. Yet that is
essentially what you call clue g. It can be done,
obviously because they were doing it, but it is so
much worse than designing a new plane from scratch. It's
just it costs a lot less and it takes a
(06:17):
lot less time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, because over those decades, over those thirty to forty years,
there have been so many innovations in flight technology that, like,
you could build a really great airplane from the ground
up if that's what you wanted to do. We should
mention that all of that. Did you name that first
CEO from ninety seven, Yeah, Philip Condit, Okay, so he
was the first guy. The other thing that he did,
(06:41):
and this was a little bit later, this was I
think four years after he was named CEO he he
didn't split up Boeing like a breakup, but he split
them up physically, and that he moved their headquarters from
their longtime home in Seattle to Chicago. And he did
this for allows three million bucks a year. It was
(07:01):
sixty million dollars in state and local tax credit over
a twenty year period. Three million bucks a year for
a company like this is like chicken scratch.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So it was a bit of a head scratcher move
because you had a company that had everything under one
roof in Seattle, and now you had these Seattle based
engineers working there, and you had the C suite in Chicago.
And that's anytime that happens that. I mean, I know
people can work remotely and stuff like that, but it
seemed like a great idea to have everything there in Seattle.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah. And plus up to that point, with the executives
and the decision makers working very closely with like the
engineers and product division, those engineers knew the executives, they
had a working relationship with them, so they felt comfortable
saying like, I don't really think we should do that
because it's going to make the plane fall out of
the sky and the executives would listen, this is like
they didn't know these people anymore. It just got separated.
(07:56):
And this transition really kind of became complete when a
guy named Harry Stone Cipher took over from Philip Condit
in two thousand and three. He became CEO. He used
to be a general electric, but he was most recently
with McDonald douglas. And even though that Boeing acquired McDonald douglas,
McDonald douglas influenced Boeing's culture. Boeing's culture became that same
(08:19):
cost cutting like focus, shareholder holder verse. Yes, exactly, that
kind of focus that became what Boeing adopted after guys
like Kerry stone Cipher took over Boeing.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, he has a quote he been uh he said
when people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that
was the intent, so that so that it is run
like a business rather than a great engineering firm. And
that's one of those quotes where I was like, bro,
you just said that out loud to the press, Like right,
no one wants to hear that. Yeah, well, I guess
shareholders did, but exactly everyone else the public at large
(08:55):
ones safe planes that don't fall out of the sky.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, but he was putting a signal out, a bats
signal of sort saying like, hey, investors, come invest in Boeing,
We're gonna make a of course, some money for you.
And they started to The next CEO is Jim McNerney,
and he was the one who you can really put
the most most of the blame for the design of
(09:18):
the seven thirty seven Max from him onward. Essentially every
single CEO had some sort of direct personal blame for
what happened, but he was the one who was like,
we need to get this plane out, We need to
get it out fast, we need to cut every corner
we possibly can to save time and money. Go.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah. So he ran the company until twenty fifteen, so
he oversaws sort of all of that planning and development basically.
And then after that CEO, Man, I just hate saying
that CEO over and over a bad days in my mouth.
The new guy's name was Dennis Muhlenberg, and he, you know,
obviously inherited quite a mess after what we're about to
(10:00):
talk about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Right, So, like I said, like these guys were saying, like,
come on, we got to get going, Like Airbus is
already several steps ahead, and we need to get this
thing out so people can start ordering before Airbus just
sucks all of the market share out of US. I
saw that they put countdown clocks for different deadlines all
throughout the office, in meeting rooms, conference rooms, there was
(10:22):
constantly a clock counting down while you were at work. Yeah,
engineers got the impression. And sometimes we're told directly like
keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
The head of the project for the seven thirty seven
Max people didn't report directly to them anymore. They reported
to their heads, and their heads may or may not
have told that project manager about any problems that came up.
So this whole rushed project also had like an aura
of just keep your mouth shut, do not do anything
to delay this.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, as we'll see later,
there were whistleblowers. But when it takes a like somebody
requesting whistleblow or protection to come forward, especially with I
mean in any corporation, but especially when it's something that's
dealing with like public safety, that's not how it should be.
You know, you should be able to to say hey,
at your work, this is without fear of being of
(11:13):
a reprisal. You know, like, we're not doing the right
thing here, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And it used to be you didn't even need to
whistle blow. You would go to the executives and be like, hey,
this is a real problem, this is not safe, and
they would listen to you. That wasn't the case anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
with the design phase right after this. All right, we're back.
(11:52):
I know we talked a little bit at first about
how they decided to sort of revamp this decade's old
fleet design wise, instead of starting from scratch with all
this great new technology. But that's what they did. They
took that seven thirty seven body, they made a lot
of changes, It added bigger engines. And one of the
things that was the result, and they knew this by
(12:13):
twenty twelve, basically was that they had created a problem,
a balance problem, whereas at certain speeds you could potentially
go into a stall because the airplane's nose drifted upward.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, because they basically took the same plane and just
put giant engines that the plane was never designed for,
and it just knocked it out of balance. Right, And
you would say, well, why didn't they just move the wings.
There was a good reason they didn't move the wings,
because the more changes you make to an airplane, the
more likely it is that all the pilots at all
(12:46):
the different airlines that fly that plane are going to
need updated training. Right, the FA will require it. Airlines
don't like that. That's an added cost to the plane
you're selling them, So they did. They bent themselves into
pretzels trying to avoid making actual big changes. They just tried.
(13:07):
They were playing whack a mole with all the problems
that came up, with an eye toward not actually doing
the one thing that would solved the problem, which is
redesigned the wings. So what they came up with instead
was some software that would take over and make the
nose go back level whenever it got out of a
suitable angle of attack.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
It's called yeah, it's called the And this is the
real sort of well I was going to say the
real villain, but the real villains were the humans behind
this decision. But we're talking about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System the MCAS, and this thing, like you said, I
don't know if it was clear, but it literally takes
over controls of the plane and takes like supposedly takes
(13:52):
care of the issue for the pilot instead of saying like, hey,
you know, let's redesign this plane or at least train
these pilots to rectify this on their own with with
their hands on on the wheel. Now, what's that thing.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Called the stick? I think they call it the stick?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Is it the stick in big planes too? Probably, I'm
pretty sure, just a larger stick. Yeah, the big on
the truck, the big stick. They said, we designed this
wizbang software that's going to do that for you. And
when they went around to test flight mode, I think
it was like twenty sixteen, the MCAS was still a
(14:29):
pretty small part of this whole thing, but it was
part of the aircraft.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, And then they started testing this new design and
simulators and I know, at least once, I think in
twenty twelve, they the I think the head test pilot
for Boeing took ten seconds to override the mcast and
crashed and they were like, oh, okay, we need to
keep working on this. So again they're back to playing
(14:53):
whack a mole. Like the band aid that they put
on the issue of the imbalance, which was the software
now has its own so now they're fixing those, and
then that would bring up more bugs and more bugs,
so they had to fix those and those and those,
And this was where the design for the Boeing seven
thirty seven Max like really started to get out of hand.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, for sure, because like I said, it was a
pretty small part of the system at first. It had
kind of that one function I think initially, or was
supposed to. But by the time you're playing whack the mole,
it keeps growing and growing and you're like, well, then
the software will solve this problem, and then the software
should solve this problem, and all of a sudden as
it's interacting with these plane systems. It's a huge part
(15:36):
of flying this plane.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, and they had to integrate it with the existing software.
They couldn't redo the software or the flight controls or else. Again,
you have pilot training that you've just triggered, right, So
they were just basically hammering this thing into place as
best they could. The way that it finally worked was
there were two sensors on the nose that since the
(15:59):
angle of the plane right, and when the sensors sent
information saying, hey, this plane's at way too steep of
an angle, it could stall out if it goes any further.
If it goes any further up, the MCAST system literally,
like you said, took over the flight controls and then
leveled the plane back out. Right. There was a huge
(16:22):
issue that they made it. They designed it which still
befuddles engineers aerospace engineers today, so that only one of
those sensors saying the plane's angle was wrong could trigger
the MCAST. Like, there was no redundancy. So if one
of those sensors was faulty and the other was fine,
it didn't matter. The faulty one was going to tell
(16:44):
the MCAST to level out, even if the plane's angle
wasn't actually an issue.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, like the whole idea there is, if one sensor
goes off, you want to have that other sensor that
aligns with it and says, yeah, we're getting the same
readings or whatever, which is you know, it's that backup,
it's that redundancy that you need. You need that matching
data before that thing engages itself. So they said, you
know what, we've done our calculations, and we think it's
(17:13):
much simpler this way, and the risk of catastrophic failure
is quote almost inconceivable. Yeah, I think they figured the
probability was one per two hundred and twenty three trillion
hours of flight. So they said, you know what, we
don't need this redundancy, it's not necessary.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Which is still it's just insane, like that is a
basic principle. Redundancy is a basic principle of any engineering, right,
And it's just I don't I still couldn't find why
they made that decision, why it was so much harder
for that to have the sensors have to match. It's
just nuts. But as we'll see, somebody clearly forgot to
carry the one because that that calculation they came up
(17:50):
with for that probability was not yeah, correctrect So there
was another thing that they did. They didn't tell anybody
about the mcast.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, this is the one that really gets me.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
They created this was brand new. No one had ever
created something like the mcast before. It wasn't like they
took an existing software and just kind of redesigned it.
They made new software to do a brand new thing
that hadn't been done before. And then they didn't tell
anyone about it. And again, just want to reiterate, the
MCAST took over the controls from the pilot. If you
(18:25):
were the pilot, you were no longer in control of
the plane while the MCAST was bringing the nose back
down to a more suitable angle of attack. Imagine that
happening and you having no idea what's going on because
you don't know the MCAST exists.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, and all of this is because they don't want
to make the again, make the plane less appealing to
buyers to airlines because they're gonna have to invest a
lot of money in like pilot retraining and even as
simple things as like you know, flight manuals and stuff
like that. Yeah, supposedly, I mean, it was reported at
least that Boeing made a deal with Southwest Air that said, hey,
(19:01):
if you buy enough planes from us, and if you
don't require your special training for the pilots, like save
yourself some money, we'll give you a discount on these planes.
And Boeing lobbied the FAA, like actively lobbied them to
allow them not to make any mention of the MCST
in the manual, like we don't even want this in
the flight manual, And the FAA said.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Sure, Yeah, they said, okay, Boeing told them that it
was such a minor part of an already existing system,
I think the existing air speed sensor system, that it
was not worth mentioning, and the FAA, like you said,
they're like, sure, that's fine. They also didn't even put
an indicator light for it in there. That's how secret
they kept this thing, so you would have no idea
(19:45):
it was on right, So this was like that was
you might be stunned that the FAA just went along
with that. It also shows you that they didn't They
had no idea what the m cast was. They didn't
go and look and say, well, let us see if
it's actually important or not tell us what this thing is.
Later on, FAA officials, some of them would testify they
(20:07):
didn't get the mcast, they didn't understand what it was,
and they really were encouraged not to ask too many questions,
so they just said, sure, if you guys don't think
that it's worth mentioning, we won't make you.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah for sure, and you know this is all you know,
how I mentioned the beginning part of the systemic failures
of just how things work, So we should talk a
little bit about that. As far as the FAA is concerned,
because when they were formed in nineteen fifty eight, it
was pretty clear right out of the gate that their
kind of co mandates could often be in conflict with
(20:40):
one another, which was to promote the interest of the
aviation industry and very important to promote the safety of
the flying public. So they knew pretty quickly that like
those like I said, those don't always align. So Congress
in I think nineteen sixty seven said, all right, maybe
we should have a new agency that really guides the
safety side. So they created National Transportation Safety Board, and
(21:02):
they're like, they'll they'll keep everybody safe and recommend regulations
to the FAA to enforce, but they can't demand that.
The FAA has never had to do the things that
they're suggested to do.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Right, it's just the NTSB is looking out for the
safety but the FAA doesn't have to enact it because
again that might conflict with the interests of the aviation industry.
And that stuck out to me, Chuck, that the safety
of the flying public isn't always in the interests of
the aviation industry. It should one hundred percent of the
time be in the interests of the aviation industry. Yeah,
(21:39):
that's just my take, hot take.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
But what ended up happening was the FAA said, all right, well,
you know, we're good at the industry stuff, so why
don't we just let Boeing, like they know planes, why
don't we let them handle their own certification process. And
it wasn't. I mean, that seems to be sort of
standard practice. It wasn't like some big exception was made, right.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah. No, they have a name for it, organizational designation authorization.
The FAA can say, like you just said, you know
a lot about what we want and what we require.
We're just going to let you go through and verify
that all this stuff adheres to FAA requirements and guidelines,
and then you come back and tell us if it does.
You plane maker, certify your own plane and tell us
(22:22):
if we should certify it in turn. And that's exactly
what it is. That's that process.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, they're like, hey, here's what you do. Just do
it all, then send me an email that just says
all good.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Right, write an email to the president, but like it's
from me, and then I'll sign it.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So this is part of a bigger problem that actually
has a name. It's called regulatory capture, and it's this
idea that when people are working closely together, like the
FAA works closely with the airline industry and Boeing, that
they know, they know these people, and they end up
(23:02):
I don't want to necessarily say sighting, but they end
up more sympathetic to the industry side than the public
that they're supposed to be protecting because they don't work
with the public at large every day. They work with
these people every day exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That's the same reason why you should avoid ever agreeing
to mediation instead of a lawsuit, because the mediators typically,
even though they won't say they do, they will typically
work for the people paying them, and the chances of
your company that say you're going into mediation with hiring
them again are far greater than you ever hiring them.
(23:41):
It's not exactly the same thing, but it's they have
a working relationship that just can't be avoided, and that
also is supported by another issue called the revolving door.
Regulatory capture is very much supported by the revolving door
and vice versa, which is you are a friendly regulated
and the company you're regulating later on is like, hey,
(24:04):
we want to hire you. We think you've done a
great job, and we want you to come work for
us for gobs of money. And it can go the
other way too. A friendly colleague can go become a regulator,
and you know, you just kind of expect them to
turn a blind eye when you need them to. That's
just a huge problem, especially when you're talking about huge
like life and death stuff like designing and certifying airplanes
(24:29):
or you know, pharmaceutical makers and the FDA. They're frequently
talked about as regulatory capture and a revolving door.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. I mean, I'm just a dummy podcaster, so I
don't know how any of this stuff works. But it
seems to me like there should be like a rule
or a law that says, you know, choose your path,
Like you can't go work for the FAA for ten
years and then go work for Boeing right after that
with some plumb job or some pharmaceutical company and then
(24:58):
you go work for the FDA. Like it's just such
an obvious conflict, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, I don't remember if you and I recorded the
episode on it or not. I feel like we did
years back. I definitely wrote an article about this, and
people have proposed that over the years. I think three
years is typically the average, which makes sense, Like a
lot of people change at a company in three years,
so that would probably actually do it. But it's just
(25:23):
like just added to the pile of problems that we
have to solve to get things on track around here.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I propose we take a sort of a quicker break
here than we normally would because we've got the crashes
coming up. And after that, it's you know, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I agree?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Okay, I'm not quite sure. I was trying to say there,
but still, we'll be right back and we'll talk about
what happened with these planes right after this.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Okay, chuck, So we're back, and we're gonna go back
to March twenty seventeen, and I guess this month is
when the FAA certified the seven thirty seven Max eight
to fly. A few months later, the Max nine was
certified to fly, and both of these planes, I think
they were the first seven thirty seven Maxes to hit
(26:29):
the skies. And one thing you want to point out
is when the FAA certifies a new plane to fly,
they and the European the EU Aviation Authority they're basically
their stamps tell the rest of the world like, these
planes are fine, you can buy them and fly them,
you can put them into your airline fleet. Other countries
(26:52):
have their own aviation authority, sure, but they do not
have the resources that like the FAA or the EU's
Aviation Authority have, and so they're relied upon, Like their
credibility is important worldwide. So this is why. One reason
also it was such a big deal that the fa
just completely fell down on the job.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, because they're supposed to be the gold standards worldwide,
like you said.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
So.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
On October twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, Lion Air flight it
was the seven thirty seven Max eight crashed into the
Java Sea very shortly after takeoff from Indonesia, and the
flight crew communicated with air traffic control that basically they
were having trouble with flight control, they were having trouble
(27:38):
with their altitude, and then the plane just disappears from radar,
and I think it was about thirteen minutes later it
plunged into the Java See at about four hundred miles
an hour and killed all one hundred and eighty nine
people on board.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. Yeah, and all of this was I think, like
you said, thirteen minutes after the plane took off. So
that angle of attack thing. We know enough now to
know what was going on. At the time, no one
had any idea what was going on, and so Boeing said, oh,
there's this thing called the mcast that we put in.
(28:12):
Just here's some information about it, and if anything like
this ever happens to you, here's the procedure to override
it and you'll be all good. Just it was still
it was pilot error, everybody. That's that's what the problem was.
That's what Boeing blamed it on.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, so that was crash number one. Then, I guess
about five months later, in March of twenty nineteen, an
Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed near at Geer, Ethiopia. This was
six minutes after takeoff, and all one hundred and fifty
seven passengers and crew obviously on board, died.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And that what made that crash even worse, Chuck, is
that those airline pilots followed that procedure that Boeing had
told the world about after the Lion airflight a few
months before, and it still didn't work because there was
a software glitch with the mcass and it kept reactivating
and reactivating and they couldn't override it, and that's when
(29:09):
it crashed. So even with this workaround that Boeing came
up with, it still wasn't fixing the problem. And after
that second crash, it was quite clear that Boeing had
screwed up royally, and also that the FAA had let
them do that and still certified these planes that were
way too dangerous to carry human beings.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, the whole seven thirty seven Max fleet was grounded
at that point for twenty months. It was the biggest
sort of grounding like that in aviation history. It took
out four hundred and fifty planes from the sky, and
you know, its sindrils ran all throughout the airline industry,
like travel stock prices, obviously Southwest. You know I mentioned
(29:51):
like supposedly having that better deal, they had to ground
I think thirty of their fifty eight plane stop.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Fleet, fleet, that's the word, the fleet with the sticks,
that's right. I mean, it's clear I'm not an aviator,
you guys. I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone,
but governing bodies really kind of came in quickly. After
that point, they launched investigations not just into Boeing but
also into the FAA. And you know, they did the
thing you do, which you start issuing statements like that
(30:21):
are really angry, and then there are press releases and
there are denials, and then CEOs come and go. Obviously,
lawsuits and at least one criminal charge would come and
regulatory actions. But while this is going on, there's still
like problems with this plane.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah. And the reason they grounded all seven thirty seven
max is everywhere in the world for twenty months. It
was supposed to be a very short time, but it
turned out to be twenty months is because these were
brand new planes that dropped out of the sky. Remember
that one in two hundred and thirty two trillion chants
of the function, this is two. Yeah. The the Lion
(31:03):
air plane had eight hundred hours of flight time. The
Ethiopian air had just thirteen hundred and thirty hours. Yeah,
so this happened two times in just twenty one hundred
and thirty flight hours.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Boy, there's some some Josh Clark matth in there that
we just edited out, chuck, right.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So in October twenty eighteen, this is a year after
that Lion Air crash, the CEO of who I mentioned
earlier at the time, Dennis Muhlenberg, was called before Congress,
which is what you do. You got to take your
lumps and go in there and get yelled at, basically,
and the whole time he's insisting the plane is safe
and in that hearing and I remember watching some of
(31:41):
this stuff. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said after that second crash,
he met with Boeing reps in his office and they
said what Josh Clark would say one day is that
it was pilot air, which like, that's just complete fabrication.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, I mean they yeah, it's just so scummy, you know,
to be that responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people,
terrible deaths, and then just to blame two people who
are for people I guess who are blameless, and that's
just I just think that's terrible. And you might say, well, okay,
what's wrong with Muhlenberg. He was the one who inherited
(32:17):
the problem. He's to blame because he didn't ground that
the seven thirty seven maxes. The FAA made Boeing do that,
so he had the option to do this. He had
the opportunity to and he didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously the FAA, we've been
pretty hard on here, and they were found responsible for
good reason. There was a twenty twenty congressional report that
said Boeing in the FAA jointly were responsible for these
two plane crashes. And the FAA this whole time is
insisting that it did the right thing. It's like, we,
(32:51):
you know, did everything like we were supposed to as
far as certification goes, but it seems to be a
systemic thing where and stepped forward before this and said,
you can't allow them to certify themselves because they may
have been telling the truth when they said they follow
a procedure, but the procedure was wrong exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah. So when that report came out, the shares of
bow of Boeing plummeted as far as fines go and
actual money that they had to shell out from this. Yeah,
that FA fined Boeing seventeen million dollars in twenty twenty one,
seventeen million with an m yeah, for using unapproved or
(33:33):
non conforming parts or mislabeling the parts. Neither of these
those things had anything to do with the crashes. So
Boeing was never fined for those two crashes by the FAA.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, was that just them trying to be like, hey,
let's slap them with something so the public sees that
had like that's.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
My interpretation, Yes, And that's the the little pussy cat
bite that they came up with, right, Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow? Sure.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The other thing is is the FAA didn't start issuing
penalties like that until the Justice Department filed suit against
Boeing for defrauding the United States government by saying this
thing is fine, you can go ahead and certify at FAA.
And there was actually a criminal misconduct facet to the
whole thing as well. And I think Boeing negotiated a
(34:25):
two point five billion dollar payment are fine to the
United States to basically say like, just here, make this
go away. Here's some money. They also had to pay
eight point three billion dollars to the airlines and then
man the victims families all I think three hundred and
forty five victims families. There was one hundred million dollar
(34:47):
pot set aside for them as part of this negotiated
agreement with the Justice Department. That's the thing that I
saw though. When I was looking that up, chuck on
like like a Google search or whatever. Yeah, the reporting
on it said that Boeing is dedicating one hundred million
dollars to victims. Families Almost across the board, all of
(35:09):
the rere like they weren't forced to. It's disgusting because
it also shows that all of these outlets were basically
just copying the Boeing press release.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, you did mention a criminal charge.
There was one. There was one individual that faced criminal charges.
It was a former lead technical pilot named Mark Forlkner,
and he is the guy who convinced the FAA that
the MCST was not something worthy of including in the
(35:38):
flight manual. I think it was exposed later on in
internal emails. He was frustrated about mcast in the email
and he said, quote I basically lied to the FAA
end quote. And he was found not guilty of defrauding
federal regulators. And that was that was the only person
to be brought up on criminal charges.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah. After that, the JAY said, Okay, we're closing this case.
It's done. As you can imagine, the families of the
victims were not at all happy with any of this. Yeah,
so the whole thing put to rest. Everybody's moving on.
This is what was that twenty twenty one, I think
when that whole thing got settled. Yeah, And then three
(36:22):
years later, less than three years later, there was another
catastrophic incident with another Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah. And I remember when this one happened, after all
the other stuff, it was just like what is because
I mean, I feel like there was this weird certain
amount of national pride with Boeing even at one point,
like I remember growing up hearing about like Boeing, like
this great company of engineers, like these brilliant people. And
then by the time this happened in twenty twenty four,
(36:52):
I'm not even in like a plane head, and I
was like, what is happening with this like once great company?
And that's when Alaska Airlines flight depressurized rapidly at sixteen
thousand feet because a door plug blew out and there
was a hole in the side of the plane.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah. Door plug is essentially a panel that covers an
unused emergency exit, and that panel came off, blew off,
and just by total luck or the grace of God,
depending on your view, of what's going on behind the universe.
There was nobody seated right there. Yeah, And the reason
(37:28):
why this was lucky is because parts of the seats
were sucked out, and there would be a good chance
that a human sitting in one of those seats would
have been sucked out. At sixteen thousand feet, it's mind
boggling that nobody was killed or I think seriously injured.
Even than that. It's just it was it could have
been so bad and lucky for Boeing it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah. Initial reports intigated that they couldn't find the bolts
that were to hold that plug in place, and then
apparently there were signs that they never maybe there were
never bolts in place to begin with, and that a
Boeing worker removed that door plug for some routine maintenance
didn't put the bolts back in. At this point, the
FAA is like, all right, this can't you know? This
(38:16):
is such a public thing. After the disaster of the
two crashes, they grounded the planes again. They said, quote,
this should never have happened and it cannot happen again.
And when they did follow up investigations, it, I mean,
it seemed kind of like a clown show going on
at Spirit Aero Systems that like the factory where these
(38:36):
things were being put together.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
One of their suppliers, Yeah, this was not good a
good look. There were assemblers who were in charge of
putting plane stuff together. They were jump up and down
on airplane parts and like kick it into place to
make the drill holes line up the way that they
should a part like that for something like an airplane,
and the Boeing of yesteryear would have immediately been sent
(38:59):
back and supplier would have been sweating that they were
going to get dropped for somebody else. That's not the case,
or that certainly wasn't the case with their vendor. Spirit.
There were other problems that also came up with the
Max too that were didn't even have anything to do
with the mcast, but were still both potentially catastrophic themselves.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, there was an air pressure sensor that seems pretty
vital to me as a nonpilot that would ensure that
pilots had enough air to not lose consciousness. I guess
in the event of something better, it.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Should be important to you as a passenger.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Too, Yeah, it is. They also found loose bolts in
the rudder system. And by this point, like it's pretty
obvious that the FAA was complicit and this whole sort
of shoddy operation going down with the seven thirty seven Max.
They were non compliant with FAA regulations. And if the
(39:55):
FAA's saying they don't know about that, then that's on there.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
There was no argument or justification that FAA could put
forward that exonerated them in even a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, And here's the thing. Before that door plug blew out,
just before that, the FAA had gone to Congress and said, hey,
I think it's all good now, can we go back
to letting Boeing certify their own planes? And then after
that door blowout they or plug blowout, they withdrew that request.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
And this is the last CEO, Dave Calhoun. The reason
he was a problem or an issue as well is
because he didn't change Boeing enough for this door plug
incident to not happen. So there was there were two
high profile whistleblower deaths. Thirty two people came forward to
seek whistleblower federal protection to complain against Boeing. Two of
(40:50):
them died, and it turns out both of them died well,
one died by suicide, another one died of MRSA, so
I guess natural disease. But the guy who died by suicide,
of course, there was a conspiracy theory that he was
actually murraid. He had just given a deposition in Charleston
when he was found dead of a gunshot wound in
(41:12):
his truck in a holiday in parking lot where he
was staying after giving that deposition. And apparently there's all
sorts of evidence, including CCTV or security camera footage that
show that this was suicide. The point is that doesn't
exonerate Boeing in his suicide note, he actually named Boeing
(41:32):
as a huge reason for this, because they ruined his life.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
He said, yeah, he requested to be buried face down
so they could quote kiss his ass.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So uh yeah, it very very sad obviously. So they
are identifying all these issues with the seven thirty seven MAX.
The most scathing stuff obviously would come from the NTSB
because their separate from the AAA, and they basically have
taken to bypassing the FAA by issuing their own safety
(42:03):
notices directly and not like going through them. Yeah, and
I think in June twenty twenty five. Just last year,
they issued a bulletin of a possible engine problem on
the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like airlines should should alert you.
I know they're not going to, but I feel like
they should give you a choice, like this is a
seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Well you can see what plane it is like when
you book the flight.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, that they switch them sometimes too.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna start looking though, man, after this, Oh.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I do, I do. I don't think I've ever been
on board a Max, but I feel like it's just
the roll of the dice every time, you know.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, It's something I'm paying a lot
more attention to now. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
We also can't not mention another thing that happened after
the Alaska Airline blowout that had nothing to do with
their airline division or airplane division, but still was Boeing
and it was a terrible look. It was an aerospace thing.
When the star Liner test flight to the ISS did
(43:09):
not go very well.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, they, I mean, there were a lot of failures there.
We're not going to get into all of them, but
it was a test flight carrying a couple of astronauts
to the ISS and they ended up stuck there. I
think it was supposed to be a little more than
a week and it turned into nine months and SpaceX
had to go get them.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
It's just not a good look, right, it's not. I mean,
luckily Wilmore and Williams, the two astronauts made it back
to Earth safely, and the star Liner uncrude remotely controlled
made it back to Earth safely. But still it's just
like your stock price goes down every time. And the
reason I mentioned it is because every step of the
(43:48):
way with the seven thirty seven Max, all of it
followed that like psychopathic corporate logic, where the shareholder's return
on investment is the most important thing. It is more
important in morality, safety, practicality, sensibility, anything, right. And so
the whole like sad trombone like twist, I guess is
(44:12):
that the seven thirty seven Max cost Boeing investors eighty
seven billion dollars right over the six years from twenty
eighteen to twenty twenty four. It didn't make them money.
It cost them money in share price drops over and
over and over again, because one thing after another just
kept going and Airbus was eating Boeing's lunch all of
(44:35):
these years too.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, it's a I mean there's a lesson in there.
No one will heat it, of course, but there's a lesson.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yes there is, Chuck, You got anything else?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
I got nothing else. I mean, they're they're still out there, right,
the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, they got recertified by the FAA. I think the
last one was towed out of groundage. I don't know
if that's the word or not the union saying. And
it was declared ready for delivery to China on August
twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. So there is a very
good chance that you will fly on a seven thirty
seven Max at some point in your life if you
(45:12):
fly a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Oh, and also just real quick, they also have the
Max seven and the Max nine are the newest ones,
and they're having trouble getting those certified because they're having
an issue that they are can't figure out how to
fix yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Software is a great thing. So I'm not bagging on
the software industry, but like, I have a car that
has like a lot of newer cars are like very
software based, as a lot of people know. Yeah, and
sometimes it'll just do something.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, we had our brick once.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, it happens. I've seen it happen in my own car,
and like, that's not a plane with hundreds of passengers,
you know, No.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No, thankfully we were parked and couldn't get it back on.
But yeah, I can't imagine how terrifying that would be
if if it happened while you were driving, you know. Yeah,
we should also say talking about software, it was widely
reported that Boeing had hired had outsourced their software coding
to Indian companies to curry favor with India so they
could sell more jets there. That's true. I think they
(46:15):
were recent college graduates who were being paid nine dollars
an hour, who were entrusted with very important software stuff.
But none of them worked on the mcast, right, which
was the thing that caused those two crashes.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Obvious, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I think that's it for the seven thirty seven. Max.
I got to dedicate this one to my dad because
he's the one who gave me my interest in engineering,
because he was an engineer.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
All these yehes, I knew that that's great.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Well, since Chuck said that was great that I just
dedicated this episode to my dad as foretold in two
thousand and eight. We just opened listener mail here in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
All right, this is from Alexa from Seattle. It's a
short and suitet. Hey, guys, just wanted to add to
the topic of the cherry blossom trees. And I remember
when we recorded this, I was like, I know, there's
some places that are known for their cherry blossoms that
were not going to mention, and luckily Alexa wrote in
Seattle loves their cherry blossoms, guys. The quad at you
(47:14):
Dub is probably the most popular spot for cherry blossom viewing,
and it's always packed with people. All over the city.
You'll find cherry blossoms blooming and events themed around the
cherry blossoms, including food items and anime conventions. Nice cherry
blossoms bloom in the spring when we get random breaks
from the bleak winter weather, and it's absolutely beautiful. And Alexa,
(47:34):
I can confirm, but I think my first two trips
to Seattle were in spring and I got like the
best weather, and I think I saw cherry blossoms and
I was like, what's the deal with this place being gloomy?
Like this place is incredible.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I remember that too. I think we've done at least five,
maybe six shows there over the years, and this past
one in January was the first time I ever rained
while I was in Seattle.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yeah, we got big time seatle on this last trip
we did.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We did that was smart to choose a Seattle one
because that's where Boeing's from, so that fits this one
very nicely.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That was from Alexa. That's right, Alexa, send email no thanks, Alexa,
Oh my god. If you want to be like if
you want to be like Alexa and send us an
email and have us thank you like you're a robot,
we will do that. All you have to do is
send your email off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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