Boeing put greed before safety
There has been a lot in the news lately about problems with Boeing’s 737 Max plane, which flew its first commercial flight May 22, 2017.
A little over a year later, on Oct. 29, 2018, all 189 on board Lion Air 610 were killed when a 5-monthold 737 Max plunged into the Java Sea just 13 minutes after takeoff. On March 10, 2019, another 737 Max, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, crashed, killing all 157 passengers and crew on board.
Most recently, a door plug blew out Jan. 6 on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, causing rapid depressurization of the passenger cabin. None of the 171 passengers or six crew was killed or seriously injured, as luckily the plane was below cruising altitude and seats nearest the door plug were unoccupied.
The Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes had the same root cause resulting from a design compromise. In a nutshell, competitor Airbus introduced a new model with modern, high-efficiency engines. This is a big deal since fuel cost is a major expense. Boeing did not have a competitive model, but instead of designing a new place from scratch, which would have taken many years, it combined a larger, 6-foot-diameter, high-efficiency engine with the 737 model.
The larger engines did not fit under the wings, so they were shifted forward and upward. This design compromise created problems. Imagine if the rear tires on your car were moved forward a few feet. Surely it would handle differently.
The aerodynamic characteristics of the airplane changed, causing the nose to pitch up at high speeds. Boeing covered for this by automatically adjusting the horizontal tail stabilizer. Later Boeing realized that the same problem could occur at low air speeds. So now two situations can occur, each requiring an automatic adjustment where no adjustment was previously required. The result is more complexity — more parts, more sensors, more things that need to be maintained, more things that can go wrong.
If design compromises must be made, then at least the critical sensors and other parts must be bullet-proof, fail-safe and redundant. The oil and gas industry uses a system where three sensors are used; if one fails or reads differently, the remaining two reading the same must be correct. Boeing seems to have relied on just one sensor.
What Boeing did reminds me of the development of the Mustang. In the early 1960s, Lee Iacocca and Ford were working on a sexy sports car to appeal to young drivers. When a suggestion was made to upgrade the Falcon, product planner Dick Place reportedly exclaimed, “Falcon was not a sporty car and couldn’t be made into one. Doing that was like putting falsies on grandma.”
The door plug blowout on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was not a result of design compromises, but rather shortcuts and lack of quality control. Does Boeing have the documentation showing who installed the bolts, that the proper bolts and washers were used, each properly torqued, and witnessed and signed and dated with an inspector’s stamp? Without proper documentation, who can tell if the work was done properly or even done at all?
So, what happened to Boeing? Weren’t they known for their engineering?
Problems with the Boeing 737 Max began when the company took over McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Known for its profit-first culture in contrast with Boeing’s engineering excellence and safety-first culture, the McDonnell Douglas influence allowed Boeing to regularly make mistakes with its products and destroy its culture and reputation.
Boeing moved their headquarters from Seattle to Chicago in 2001, where its corporate executives were remote from engineering and product design input, while gaining only some government financial benefits and tax credits. Instead of designing a new aircraft, which can take 10 years, officials chose easy fixes by incorporating advanced McDonnell Douglas technology into older Boeing models.
To maximize short-term profits and minimize short-term cost, then Boeing President Walter James McNerney opted for a five-year program to upgrade to the 737 Max and upgrade training manuals instead of retraining pilots. A friend once told me “a quick fix often open doors for the problems that shouldn’t be there at first place.” This easy solution ultimately led to the crash of two 737 Max planes causing the death of 346 people.
Leaders of Boeing may have thought they were saving a lot of money but what about the lives lost due to their greed? Those crashes were not just mistakes, they were murders! So many people lost their lives; parents lost children and loved ones, spouses became widows or widowers, children lost parents and siblings. Those who died were not the only victims — so were the loved ones waiting for them. How did these money-mongers calculate the cost of lives, lifelong trauma, sorrow and misery of every victim?
At the end of the day, quality and safety come from the top down. A good corporate culture will lead to quality, and quality will lead to safety. There will always be accidents, but probably 99% are preventable.
Boeing’s reputation has taken a hit that cannot be quickly or easily repaired, but the lost lives can never be replaced.