The film Downfall is well worth watching. It chronicles the story of Boeing and how and why the two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed. The Lion Air Flight 610 crashed on October 29, 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 301 crashed on March 10, 2019. They were both new aircraft.
The planes crashed because of the MCAS (Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System). Pilots didn’t know there was an MCAS on the plane.
The aircraft company was slow to engage in any discussion with the public, US authorities, pilots.
Whistleblowers explain in the film how anytime they reported a problem or a fault at the Boeing South Carolina plant they were either fired, let go or moved on.
One employee said his pay was docked for putting quality concerns in writing. Another employee said the company did not want anything documented.
Boeing essentially ignored the families of the victims of the two crashes.
They also kept the FAA out of the loop when it came to information how how the MCAS operated on the Boeing 737 Max.
Boeing employed top PR companies to discredit pilots and airline companies to hide the mistakes they had made because of years of poor management.
Within days of the first 737nMax crash Boeing knew what was the reason for the crash.
People who rang alarm bells at Boeing were ignored.
Greed and profits were more important to Boeing than human life.
The story is not unique to Boeing.
The film is available on Netflix.
4 comments:
You are absolutely right on this one Michael. Boeing should never have gone for a sofware "solution" to a flawed design physical problem. They needed to design a completely new plane but that would have put them out of the race so they went for an Elastoplast solution which had no long term future and risked lives.
Then when this was more or less exposed following the inevitable crashes they went into absolute defensive mode. We have seen this in other bureaucracies including the Church. No doubt in the US case the revolving manufacturing/regulatory door also contributed.
Thing will not improve on this front until there is as strict implementation of corporate manslaughter and contributory negligance at the level of individuals with ultimate responsibility for these awful decisions. Fining the company and even putting it out of business is not going to have sufficient weight in individual decision making in advance of exposure.
Póló, it was only yesterday I was wondering about you as it is a long time since you posted a comment. Trust all well with you and great to see you back. Thank you. Michael
Póló, it was only yesterday I was wondering about you as it is a long time since you posted a comment. Trust all well with you and great to see you back. Thank you. Michael
Michael
I'm fine thanks. I got overwhelmed by blogs I was following and other stuff on Twitter and drastically pruned my following list so I haven't been keeping up with you.
Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh drew my attention to your Boeing post.
'Scuse the typos in mine. I'm too impulsive and do not always read my text properly before posting.
May the Force be with you.
Pól
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