2. Crisis Management

Boeing's Corruption

Just recently, I watched a documentary called Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. The film was about the crashes that occurred across seas due to mechanical errors. I know this brand isn’t an international brand, but the tragedies that happened due to their incompetence affected the entire world. The movie was very well made and does a terrific job at explaining the full story and how they got to the point of these horrible incidents.

On October 29, 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 departed from Jakarta, Indonesia. Thirteen minutes into the flight, the Boeing 737 MAX plane flew nose down into the Java Sea. It killed all 189 passengers that were on the plane. The black boxes were recovered and revealed that the plane moved up and down 24 times before finally crashing. A month after the crash, CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg gave a statement saying, “The bottom line here is the 737 MAX is safe and safety is a core value for us at Boeing.”

The black box that was found in the debris of the crash showed that there was a malfunction in the MCAS system. Boeing claimed that the cause was due to the pilot not handling the malfunction correctly. In the film, you learn that the MCAS system is not mentioned in the pilot manual or even taught in training. Pilots across the world began to worry because it seemed Boeing didn’t even mention that MCAS was a feature on their planes. It could have happened to any of them. Airlines and airports began to hold training sessions to teach pilots how to handle the situation if it were to happen again. All while Boeing promised they would have a solution in 6 weeks, with upgraded software. Boeing withheld information on the statistics they ran concerning the MCAS system and none of the planes were grounded.

Black box from Lion Air flight 610

Five months later, in March 2019, another Boeing 737 MAX crashed and killed 157 people. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed only 6 minutes after take-off. It dove into an empty field at full speed. Before boxes were found, Boeing put the blame onto pilots and implied that the pilots were not trained well and that this would never happen to an American pilot. Even though the pilot of the second plane, Yared Getachew, finished his pilot training in America. The black boxes told the same story as the plane before, but they also showed that the pilot mentioned above, Getachew, did exactly what they were taught to do in this situation. He remembered and applied it and still could do nothing to stop the plane from crashing. 

CEO Muilenburg at the court hearing

CEO Muilenburg released this statement in an attempt to condole family members of the victims, “On behalf of myself and the Boeing company, we are sorry, deeply and truly, sorry. I know that probably doesn’t offer much comfort and healing at this point, but I want you to know that we carry those memories with us every day.” Seated behind him were the family members of the victims who he refused to look at until one of the Senators at the hearing told everyone to turn around and acknowledge their loss. Muilenburg and Boeing made no effort to reach out to victims.

Countries everywhere began to ground the Boeing 737 MAX. Everyone was confused and angry as to why the plane crashed even though the pilots did everything they could. Boeing’s response was that they did not react quickly enough. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) began an investigation and took months to go through all of Boeing's paperwork, including emails, meeting records, and financial reports. They eventually found evidence to prove that the entire time, Boeing was trying to hide the MCAS feature, entirely. 

Click the photo to read more emails

It began in 1997 after Boeing merged with their long-time rival McDonnell Douglas. Employees contest that after the merge, the quality of product went downhill fast. To reduce the cost of production, jobs were cut and cheap materials replaced original supplies. After that, Boeing was doing anything to make more money at the top of the pyramid. At the same time, EU rival, AirBus, was making ground and beginning to match Boeing via sales per year. 

Airbus began making fuel-efficient passenger planes, which is ideal for airports and airlines. Less fuel meant less money spent. Boeing saw that as a threat and knew that it had to get a fuel-efficient plane out fast. Early on, proved from records of minutes from meetings, they tried to hide the MCAS feature. The fuel-efficient engines were heavy and made the plane tilt forward, so they had to create a solution to prevent that from happening. The only problem with adding a new feature meant more training. Additional training was something that Boeing wanted to avoid. If the plane required new training, airlines would have to spend time paying pilots to train instead of flying. Ultimately, more training meant less money being made so airlines ideally wanted to buy planes that didn’t require training so pilots could go straight to flying.

737 MAX fuel efficient engine

The plane needed MCAS, but MCAS needed to be taught how to use it in order to be added to the plane. Boeing took the liberty to leave out the MCAS system from all pilots, airlines, and engineers outside the team working on it. It was top secret. Statement after statement, Boeing tried to blame everyone but themselves for money, to stay on top of Wall Street, to be the best. Research done by Lion Air showed that if they didn’t fix the MCAS malfunction 15 more crashes would have occurred out of the 4,800 that were produced. Making the Boeing 737 MAX the deadliest airplane in modern engineering.

The way Boeing handled the situation was dishonest and selfish. They cut corners and not only put millions of people at risk, but also were responsible for the deaths of 346. They did not claim responsibility and tried to sweep the mistake they consciously made under the rug. Boeing ended up having to pay 2.5 billion dollars in penalties and compensation. Which is only 4% of their total revenue. Muilenburg was fired as CEO in 2019, but he left with over 60 million in pension benefits and stocks. In the end, no one from Boeing received any repercussions and greed will continue unless someone puts a stop to prioritizing money over safety.