Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 reason enough to sign up. I think.
Yeah, you can verify in person that Jerry is.
It's right. You might be able to rub some suntan lotion on her back too.
So where do people go to sign up for this sea cruise?
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.
Yeah, I can't wait either. We'll see all of you in October on the high seas.
That's right. This episode is not about ships. Actually, it's about a plane.
Which is technically a ship. It's an airship.
An airship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way.
To say it. Yeah, that's how most people say it.
I'm trying to watch what I say about this one because it's pretty touchy.
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 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.
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
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.
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 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 got to get out there and give them something that
they're going to want. Besides this A three twenty neo.
Yeah, for sure, I think should should we save talk of the actual incidents untill later, I.
Think just mentioning that they happened was enough for now.
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
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.
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 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 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 lot less time.
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, 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 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.
Yeah.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 ones safe planes that don't fall out of the sky.
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
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.
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 talk about.
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 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.
Yeah.
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.
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 a reprisal. You know, like, we're not doing the right thing here, right.
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.
Should we take a break?
Sure?
All right, let's take a break and we'll come back with the design phase right after this. All right, we're back. 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 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.
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 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. 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.
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 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.
Called the stick? I think they call it the stick?
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 pretty small part of this whole thing, but it was part of the aircraft.
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
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.
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 of flying this plane.
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 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
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 the MCAST to level out, even if the plane's angle wasn't actually an issue.
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 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.
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 with for that probability was not yeah, correctrect So there
was another thing that they did. They didn't tell anybody about the mcast.
Yeah, this is the one that really gets me.
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 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.
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, 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.
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 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 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.
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 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 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.
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, that's just my take, hot take.
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.
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 if we should certify it in turn. And that's exactly what it is. That's that process.
Yeah, they're like, hey, here's what you do. Just do it all, then send me an email that just says all good.
Right, write an email to the president, but like it's from me, and then I'll sign it.
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 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.
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.
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, 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 or you know, pharmaceutical makers and the FDA. They're frequently talked about as regulatory capture and a revolving door.
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 you go work for the FDA. Like it's just such an obvious conflict, you know.
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 like just added to the pile of problems that we have to solve to get things on track around here.
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?
I agree?
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.
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
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 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.
Yeah, because they're supposed to be the gold standards worldwide, like you said.
So.
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 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.
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. 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.
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.
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 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.
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 like supposedly having that better deal, they had to ground I think thirty of their fifty eight plane stop.
Yeah.
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 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.
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 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.
Yeah.
Boy, there's some some Josh Clark matth in there that we just edited out, chuck, right.
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
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.
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 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.
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, 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.
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 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.
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.
My interpretation, Yes, And that's the the little pussy cat bite that they came up with, right, Is that a thing?
Wow? Sure.
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
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 years later, less than three years later, there was another catastrophic incident with another Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
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, 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.
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 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.
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 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 things were being put together.
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 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.
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.
Should be important to you as a passenger.
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 FAA's saying they don't know about that, then that's on there.
There was no argument or justification that FAA could put forward that exonerated them in even a little bit, you know.
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.
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 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 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 as a huge reason for this, because they ruined his life.
He said, yeah, he requested to be buried face down so they could quote kiss his ass.
Yeah.
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 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.
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.
Well you can see what plane it is like when you book the flight.
Yeah, that they switch them sometimes too.
Yeah, I'm gonna start looking though, man, after this, Oh.
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.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, It's something I'm paying a lot more attention to now. Obviously.
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 not go very well.
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.
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 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 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 these years too.
Yeah, it's a I mean there's a lesson in there. No one will heat it, of course, but there's a lesson.
Yes there is, Chuck, You got anything else?
I got nothing else. I mean, they're they're still out there, right, the seven thirty seven Max.
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 fly a lot.
Yeah.
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.
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.
Yeah, we had our brick once.
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.
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 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.
Obvious, that's right.
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.
All these yehes, I knew that that's great.
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.
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 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, 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.
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.
Yeah, we got big time seatle on this last trip we did.
We did that was smart to choose a Seattle one because that's where Boeing's from, so that fits this one very nicely.
Fantastic.
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.
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