Boeing's Troubled 737 Max Is Back in the Air, but the Story Is Far From Over

It was three years ago last week when Boeing's next-generation 737 Max was grounded worldwide. On March 13, 2019, President Trump forced a reluctant Federal Aviation Administration to follow a long string of countries in banning the plane from carrying passengers. The grounding would last until December 2020, ravaging the reputation of the storied airplane maker, its best-selling jet and the federal agency charged with regulating them both. 

It was an extraordinary development for one of the newest airliners in the sky – commercial aircraft rarely get grounded – but the events that preceded it were equally unparalleled. Just three days before the United States joined the ban, a brand new 737 Max crashed just after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 people. And just five months before that, in October 2018, 189 people died when another brand new 737 Max, flying for Lion Air, crashed under similar circumstances near Jakarta, Indonesia. 

As Jon Ostrower, editor-in-chief of The Air Current, describes it in the new documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing now streaming on Netflix, "Two crashes of brand new airplanes within five months of each other? That doesn't happen." But it did, and the story of how is absorbingly told by both Downfall and Peter Robison's 2021 book, Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. The book and film are independent works, but they tell a similar tale of corporate greed that created the Max and a worrying lack of federal oversight when it was needed most.

Downfall and Flying Blind convincingly make the case that just as most air disasters are triggered not by one factor but by a series of mistakes, missteps and unlucky circumstances that collide, the causes of both crashes began years before the first Max rolled out of Boeing's factory in 2016. Though we know that damaged sensors and the flawed MCAS flight management software ultimately sent both planes plummeting to the ground, they were only the final links in a catastrophic chain. Also to blame were a misguided rush to get the Max into service, a neutered FAA and a pivotal merger that fundamentally transformed Boeing into a company obsessed with chasing Wall Street's whims. 

It's on those last points Downfall and Flying Bind focus most. If you want a deep dive into MCAS or a blow-by-blow of the crash investigations, you'll be disappointed. Instead, you'll find a dispiriting and damning story of capitalistic excess, from union busting and ruthless cost cutting to stock buybacks and golden parachutes for departed executives. The hubris can be hard to stomach at times, but I couldn't stop watching or turning a page. 

A changed Boeing

For most of its 100-year history, Boeing's reputation at the pinnacle of American manufacturing was unquestioned. Run by engineers who deemphasized cost when ensuring the safety and quality of its airliners, it was the company that built the 707 and 747, two planes that revolutionized air travel, and the B-17 bombers that flattened German cities during World War II. Robison, a Bloomberg investigative reporter, also highlights how seriously Boeing took its reputation when a Japan Airlines 747 plowed into a mountain near Tokyo in 1986, killing 520 people. When it discovered the crash was caused by an incorrect repair its own workers had made, Boeing quickly took responsibility. The company's success peaked in 1994 when it introduced the 777, still a popular and hugely successful commercial plane. 

Boeing's downward slide, the book and film argue, started three years later when Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas. The two had been rivals in the commercial jet business for decades, but combined forces to face a rising Airbus that had begun to win more aircraft orders. (McDonnell Douglas had built the DC-10, which, along with the Boeing 787, was the only other US-built commercial jet the FAA had grounded.) Wall Street loved the $13 billion deal, but Flying Blind likens it to Boeing's "boy scouts" meeting McDonnell Douglas' "hunter killer assassins."

Over time, they say, McDonnell Douglas execs conquered Boeing's deliberative, engineering-focused culture, transforming it into one driven by maximizing profits and the company's stock price. Mass layoffs of experienced staff and other troubling moves followed. In 2001, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from its Seattle birthplace to Chicago, isolating its executives from the people who made the planes. Ten years later, it opened a 787 plant in Charleston, South Carolina, where unions were weaker and labor costs lower than in Washington state. And all along the way, a relentless push to build more aircraft for less money trampled the company's long-held values of safety and innovation. 

Boeing did not participate in either work, though it provided a statement to Downfall that the film includes just before the closing credits. The statement, which Boeing also provided to CNET (an excerpt follows), emphasized its commitment to safety. "Since the accidents, Boeing has made significant changes as a company, and to the design of the 737 MAX, to ensure that accidents like those never happen again. … We continue to work with regulators and our customers to ensure the continued safe return of the 737 MAX to service worldwide." 

Then came the Max

Focusing on its stock price isn't an unusual goal for a public company, of course, but building an airplane carrying people is a million times more complicated than making a refrigerator. And as Downfall, the Netflix documentary, stresses, the responsibility to build a safe product is much greater. Robison puts McDonnell Douglas CEO (and later Boeing COO) Harry Stonecipher under sharp scrutiny. He says that as a protege of the late General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Stonecipher made boosting Boeing's shareholder value his ultimate goal.

Boeing's changed culture then seeped into the 737 Max's development in a number of ways. In its rush to compete with Airbus' new A320neo in the short- and medium-haul market, the company chose to upgrade the family of 737s, a plane that had been in service since 1967. That would save time and money over developing an entirely new aircraft. The decision paid off as immediately the Max sold phenomenally well. 

Backed by the FAA, Boeing also minimized the cost of certifying pilots (a major expense for airlines) who'd already been trained on previous 737 versions. No simulator time would be required, and MCAS was mentioned only in the flight manual's glossary even though it was a new 737 feature. The deadly result was that Lion Air's pilots weren't aware of MCAS or how to manage it. Likewise, when it approved the plane the FAA did not fully grasp what the system was even though 737 Max test pilots had concerns about it

Flying Blind saves sharp words for the FAA and what it describes as a too-cozy relationship with manufacturers. It says a federal agency that was created in 1958 to regulate the safety of aviation in the US had slowly been starved of funding and oversight by both Congress and the White House. FAA officials also promoted a program that delegated parts of its aircraft certification process to people building them. For the Max, that meant Boeing inspected its own planes.

Watch this: Boeing CEO: 737 Max soon to be one of the safest planes

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And the aftermath

As profiled in print and on the screen, Boeing's behavior after the crashes won't win it any praise, either. Despite early apologies and vows that safety was at its core (see video above), the company's initial move to blame pilot error outraged families of the crews. Efforts to limit damages paid to victims' loved ones also rang hollow. Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's CEO at the time of the crashes before being fired in December 2019 with more than $60 million in stock and pensions, comes off as the common villain as he pushed to lift the grounding order as quickly as possible. 

We also hear about the subsequent congressional hearings about the crashes, how the families of victims organized themselves to force Boeing's hand in taking full responsibility and the fallout both at Boeing and the FAA. It's all a sobering read in Flying Blind, but only Downfall can show us the pain in the strained voices and red eyes of parents and spouses who lost loved ones. It's disappointing, though, that the documentary spends hardly any time talking about the fixes that won the FAA's blessing to put the Max back in the air (airlines are again eagerly buying the jet). Though there are plenty of other sources for that (Flying Blind spends a bit of time on the topic), given the the loss of 346 lives I would have liked to hear it.

Which to watch (or read)

It's difficult to recommend either the book or film over the other. If you have the time and inclination, I'd take on both for the fullest picture. But if you only opt for one, consider the strengths each brings despite telling a similar story. With its onscreen interviews (including Miracle on the Hudson Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger), Downfall has a more human and emotional tone without being exploitative. At 89 minutes, it rushes through some details, and doesn't quite close with a final message, but I still found it effective. 

Given the medium of print and its 262 pages, Flying Blind is able to delve into greater specifics and surface fascinating and startling nuggets about the disturbing intersection between government and big business. For example, after she was elected South Carolina governor in 2010, Nikki Haley was a champion of bringing non-union Boeing jobs to Charleston. Then in 2019, two years after leaving office, she joined Boeing's board of directors (Haley resigned from that post the next year as a protest against Boeing's COVID-19 federal bailout). 

After premiering at Sundance in January, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing is now available for streaming on Netflix. Directed by Rory Kennedy, who also directed Last Days in Vietnam and Ethel, it was written by Keven McAlester and Mark Bailey. Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing was published in November by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House.