Funny that of all the 737 MAX aircraft that were being flown worldwide the only two that crashed were being operated by Third World airlines. Coincidence?
many people died
.....who at Boeing is going to make the personal face-to-face visit with the families of the deceased.
I am a “Boeing Guy.” I have flown 7 different types* of Boeing airplanes for thousands of hours. But, I can’t forgive the company for not being forthright in their giving the proper and full information about the trim system and its operation in flight. Yes, the pilots were inexperienced but, if they had a clue as to what was happening, two accidents, killing hundreds of people, would not have happened. The most damning quote was from a Boeing spokesman who said, We did not tell the pilots about the MCAS system because they have a lot to learn and we didn’t want to overload them. (note: not an exact quote but paraphrasing)
PS Avoid flying 2nd or 3rd World Airlines. Experience is lacking. Do so at your own peril.
* B-52, B-727, B-737, B-747, B-757, B-767, B-777.
The culture at Boeing is that the managers have all the authority. Engineers have zero, none, nada. That may have changed some lately with the new executive Chief Engineer being established, but it probably won’t have any real effect.
Boeing was frantic to get the 737 Max out the door and stop competitors from taking sales. NO ONE was going to stop the 737 Max from happening, not even if a million people had to die. Boeing couldn’t have cared less about safety at that point. They were frantic to get 737 Max sales. Hindsight says that was a poor choice since other factors weighed in and getting those sales didn’t mean much.
Any engineer who spoke up about the 737 Max would have been terminated very quickly.
Sadly, there are lots of great people at Boeing. I know many of them. Solid engineers and managers. Solid and safe engineering. Unfortunately, Boeing is run by bean counters and very few aviators. They have more affirmative action hires as executives than people with solid credentials. It is how Dennis Muhlenberg got to be Chairman, CEO, and President of Boeing. He hired Affirmative Action hires as his corporate cheerleading squad.
Frankly, this is how Boeing has been for more than 70 years.
Video of Cruz’s grilling. Internal docs look pretty damming. CEO - I know nothing.
Between 2013 and the end of the first quarter of this year, Boeing retired a net 200m shares, spending $43 billion. The number outstanding shares came down by 25 per cent.
One reason it could was because of savings on the company’s latest aircraft program, the now notorious 737 Max, grounded after two recent crashes killed 346 people. Instead of building a wholly new aircraft, Boeing simply bolted new fuel-efficient engines on to a modified existing airframe. That significantly reduced the airframe development costs of the project, according to company insiders. Boeing was able to redirect some of those “savings” to repurchase stock instead
The program for the 787 Dreamliner, for instance, lasted eight years and cost $32 billion.
Since the crashes of the 737 Max, Boeing’s market capitalization has dropped approx. $55 billion dollars, thus wiping out for shareholders all the gains Boeing spent on re-purchasing its own stock.
“What does that say about the culture at Boeing?”
It says the old culture of Boeing is gone. Relative to the fact it was third world airlines that were the two crashes it simply means our pilots are better due to superior training and standards in the Americas and Europe. They had the same failures and coped with it. However, Boeing still owns the tragedies.
Somewhere at Boeing there is a really good engineer(s) saying “I told them so but they did not listen”.
So much for the great business schools in American, still pumping out crap business leaders!