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Boeing's Nosedive: The 737-MAX · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and we are just flying the friendly skies with
0:16
Speaker 2: our co pilot Jerry and our other copilot God. And
0:21
Speaker 2: this is stuff you should know. I thought it was
0:23
Speaker 2: dog Yeah yeah.
0:27
Speaker 1: Okay, Well before we get going, there is kind of
0:31
Speaker 1: an exciting thing we need to mention. And we're gonna
0:33
Speaker 1: mention this. You know, you're probably gonna get sick of
0:35
Speaker 1: us talking about it. But stuff you should know is
0:39
Speaker 1: going on a cruise, Yeah, sea cruise, and not just
0:43
Speaker 1: like so long, suckers, we're going on vacation, right, it's
0:46
Speaker 1: like a stuff cruise with other like stuff they don't
0:49
Speaker 1: want you to know is going to be there. We're
0:51
Speaker 1: doing our live podcast on board and it's like, hey,
0:54
Speaker 1: stuff you should know listeners, Come come cruise with us.
0:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, come cruise with us. I think that's the message
0:59
Speaker 2: that we're out right now. Is on Virgin Voyages. It's
1:04
Speaker 2: just pretty swank, and it's October second to the seventh.
1:08
Speaker 2: It's five day cruise from New York City to Bermuda
1:12
Speaker 2: and back. Even they bring you back to your car.
1:15
Speaker 1: I think I think that's kind of key. Yeah, it's
1:17
Speaker 1: an adults only thing, yep. And I think the name
1:20
Speaker 1: of it is the Big Apple to Bermuda Cruise. And yeah,
1:24
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot of fun. So you know,
1:26
Speaker 1: like I said, we're doing our live podcast and we're
1:28
Speaker 1: gonna be doing some other fun events that they haven't
1:31
Speaker 1: told us about yet. The feeling will be like trivia
1:33
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But Jerry is going, and that's
1:36
Speaker 1: reason enough to sign up. I think.
1:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can verify in person that Jerry is.
1:40
Speaker 1: It's right. You might be able to rub some suntan
1:43
Speaker 1: lotion on her back too.
1:45
Speaker 2: So where do people go to sign up for this
1:47
Speaker 2: sea cruise?
1:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I would do. I think we're
1:49
Speaker 1: gonna have some like super specific information coming, but just
1:53
Speaker 1: get on your search engine and check out stuff at
1:55
Speaker 1: sea Virgin Voyages and that'll direct you. I can't wait.
1:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't wait either. We'll see all of you
2:01
Speaker 2: in October on the high seas.
2:04
Speaker 1: That's right. This episode is not about ships. Actually, it's
2:08
Speaker 1: about a plane.
2:09
Speaker 2: Which is technically a ship. It's an airship.
2:12
Speaker 1: An airship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way.
2:14
Speaker 2: To say it. Yeah, that's how most people say it.
2:17
Speaker 1: I'm trying to watch what I say about this one
2:18
Speaker 1: because it's pretty touchy.
2:20
Speaker 2: It is touchy, but it's just such a shameful chapter
2:24
Speaker 2: in the history of what was long regarded one of
2:29
Speaker 2: the best engineering firms in the world, the Boeing Corporation.
2:33
Speaker 2: They made great airplanes, They were very innovative, they made
2:37
Speaker 2: very safe airplanes. They cared about the details. They put
2:40
Speaker 2: engineering standards before profit, and all of that just got
2:45
Speaker 2: wiped out in the course of a few years, from
2:47
Speaker 2: about two thoy eighteen to nineteen. All of it just
2:51
Speaker 2: wentroop when it came to light that they had flip
2:54
Speaker 2: flopped that a few years before and profits now came
2:57
Speaker 2: before standards.
2:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we'll talk about in more detail, but
3:02
Speaker 1: you know, the end result, as everybody knows at this point,
3:05
Speaker 1: is two of their seven thirty seven Max planes crashed,
3:08
Speaker 1: fell out of the sky. Yeah, and killed a lot
3:10
Speaker 1: of people. Super sad and it's very sort of anger
3:16
Speaker 1: inducing when you know the story behind it all. So
3:19
Speaker 1: we're gonna detail that now starting. I guess we should
3:23
Speaker 1: say that the seven thirty seven Max airplane that we're
3:26
Speaker 1: talking about was a brand new fleet that was gonna
3:29
Speaker 1: replace the old seven thirty sevens and compete with their rival, Airbus,
3:34
Speaker 1: the Airbus A three twenty neo.
3:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Airbus has long been Boeing's rival since Boeing
3:40
Speaker 2: bought McDonald Douglass back in I think the nineties, and
3:45
Speaker 2: so it's just been Boeing Airbus head to head to
3:48
Speaker 2: supply the world with their airplanes and the seven thirty
3:51
Speaker 2: seven Max. The reason that they were updating the seven
3:54
Speaker 2: thirty sevens is one, like you said, these were old
3:57
Speaker 2: seven thirty sevens that needed to be replaced. But also
4:00
Speaker 2: so that Airbus A three twenty neo it was like
4:03
Speaker 2: a step up, like it was the same kind of body,
4:07
Speaker 2: like I think a narrow body is what it's called
4:09
Speaker 2: narrowbody mid sized plane as the seven thirty seven. So
4:14
Speaker 2: companies now had an option they could be like, well,
4:15
Speaker 2: we're going to go with this Airbus instead of replacing
4:17
Speaker 2: the Bowings with Boeings. So Boeing said, good god, we've
4:21
Speaker 2: got to get out there and give them something that
4:24
Speaker 2: they're going to want. Besides this A three twenty neo.
4:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think should should we save talk
4:31
Speaker 1: of the actual incidents untill later, I.
4:33
Speaker 2: Think just mentioning that they happened was enough for now.
4:37
Speaker 1: All right, Well, what you're gonna hear is gonna infuriate
4:40
Speaker 1: you a little bit. It's also gonna shine a bit
4:42
Speaker 1: of a light on some of the which will also
4:44
Speaker 1: infuriate you. Just some of the systemic problems with the
4:47
Speaker 1: airline industry as a whole and how these planes are
4:51
Speaker 1: approved for being safe to fly in the sky. And
4:55
Speaker 1: the FAA is going to take some hits deservedly. But
4:59
Speaker 1: we should probably start out by talking about Boeing. You know,
5:02
Speaker 1: you mentioned that they were, you know, dedicated to the
5:05
Speaker 1: top notch engineering for decades and decades, but starting in
5:10
Speaker 1: the nineties that started to change, right.
5:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a CEO that kind of kicked it
5:16
Speaker 2: all off. His name was Philip Condit, and in nineteen
5:19
Speaker 2: ninety seven he said, we're going to acquire McDonald douglas.
5:23
Speaker 2: Like I said, up to that point, McDonald douglas was
5:25
Speaker 2: also a neck and neck competitor with Boeing, But rather
5:30
Speaker 2: than making their name as also like a great engineering
5:35
Speaker 2: firm with innovation and a mind to safety, McDonald douglas
5:39
Speaker 2: is like, no, we're just going to cut costs Yeah,
5:42
Speaker 2: Whereas Boeing, if they were going to design a new plane,
5:45
Speaker 2: or if they were going to come up with a
5:46
Speaker 2: new plane, they would start from scratch and design a
5:49
Speaker 2: new plane and probably set all the industry standards for
5:52
Speaker 2: decades to follow. What McDonald Douglas did was they would
5:56
Speaker 2: design a plane and then they would go back to
5:58
Speaker 2: it over a decade and decad decade after decade and
6:01
Speaker 2: just kind of revamp it and update. Yet that is
6:06
Speaker 2: essentially what you call clue g. It can be done,
6:08
Speaker 2: obviously because they were doing it, but it is so
6:11
Speaker 2: much worse than designing a new plane from scratch. It's
6:15
Speaker 2: just it costs a lot less and it takes a
6:17
Speaker 2: lot less time.
6:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, because over those decades, over those thirty to forty years,
6:22
Speaker 1: there have been so many innovations in flight technology that, like,
6:27
Speaker 1: you could build a really great airplane from the ground
6:29
Speaker 1: up if that's what you wanted to do. We should
6:32
Speaker 1: mention that all of that. Did you name that first
6:34
Speaker 1: CEO from ninety seven, Yeah, Philip Condit, Okay, so he
6:38
Speaker 1: was the first guy. The other thing that he did,
6:41
Speaker 1: and this was a little bit later, this was I
6:43
Speaker 1: think four years after he was named CEO he he
6:47
Speaker 1: didn't split up Boeing like a breakup, but he split
6:50
Speaker 1: them up physically, and that he moved their headquarters from
6:54
Speaker 1: their longtime home in Seattle to Chicago. And he did
6:58
Speaker 1: this for allows three million bucks a year. It was
7:01
Speaker 1: sixty million dollars in state and local tax credit over
7:05
Speaker 1: a twenty year period. Three million bucks a year for
7:08
Speaker 1: a company like this is like chicken scratch.
7:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:11
Speaker 1: So it was a bit of a head scratcher move
7:13
Speaker 1: because you had a company that had everything under one
7:16
Speaker 1: roof in Seattle, and now you had these Seattle based
7:19
Speaker 1: engineers working there, and you had the C suite in Chicago.
7:24
Speaker 1: And that's anytime that happens that. I mean, I know
7:27
Speaker 1: people can work remotely and stuff like that, but it
7:30
Speaker 1: seemed like a great idea to have everything there in Seattle.
7:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. And plus up to that point, with the executives
7:35
Speaker 2: and the decision makers working very closely with like the
7:38
Speaker 2: engineers and product division, those engineers knew the executives, they
7:43
Speaker 2: had a working relationship with them, so they felt comfortable
7:46
Speaker 2: saying like, I don't really think we should do that
7:48
Speaker 2: because it's going to make the plane fall out of
7:49
Speaker 2: the sky and the executives would listen, this is like
7:52
Speaker 2: they didn't know these people anymore. It just got separated.
7:56
Speaker 2: And this transition really kind of became complete when a
7:59
Speaker 2: guy named Harry Stone Cipher took over from Philip Condit
8:02
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three. He became CEO. He used
8:05
Speaker 2: to be a general electric, but he was most recently
8:08
Speaker 2: with McDonald douglas. And even though that Boeing acquired McDonald douglas,
8:13
Speaker 2: McDonald douglas influenced Boeing's culture. Boeing's culture became that same
8:19
Speaker 2: cost cutting like focus, shareholder holder verse. Yes, exactly, that
8:26
Speaker 2: kind of focus that became what Boeing adopted after guys
8:30
Speaker 2: like Kerry stone Cipher took over Boeing.
8:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has a quote he been uh he said
8:36
Speaker 1: when people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that
8:38
Speaker 1: was the intent, so that so that it is run
8:41
Speaker 1: like a business rather than a great engineering firm. And
8:44
Speaker 1: that's one of those quotes where I was like, bro,
8:46
Speaker 1: you just said that out loud to the press, Like right,
8:49
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear that. Yeah, well, I guess
8:51
Speaker 1: shareholders did, but exactly everyone else the public at large
8:55
Speaker 1: ones safe planes that don't fall out of the sky.
8:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was putting a signal out, a bats
9:00
Speaker 2: signal of sort saying like, hey, investors, come invest in Boeing,
9:03
Speaker 2: We're gonna make a of course, some money for you.
9:06
Speaker 2: And they started to The next CEO is Jim McNerney,
9:10
Speaker 2: and he was the one who you can really put
9:14
Speaker 2: the most most of the blame for the design of
9:18
Speaker 2: the seven thirty seven Max from him onward. Essentially every
9:22
Speaker 2: single CEO had some sort of direct personal blame for
9:27
Speaker 2: what happened, but he was the one who was like,
9:29
Speaker 2: we need to get this plane out, We need to
9:31
Speaker 2: get it out fast, we need to cut every corner
9:34
Speaker 2: we possibly can to save time and money. Go.
9:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he ran the company until twenty fifteen, so
9:41
Speaker 1: he oversaws sort of all of that planning and development basically.
9:45
Speaker 1: And then after that CEO, Man, I just hate saying
9:48
Speaker 1: that CEO over and over a bad days in my mouth.
9:53
Speaker 1: The new guy's name was Dennis Muhlenberg, and he, you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: obviously inherited quite a mess after what we're about to
10:00
Speaker 1: talk about.
10:00
Speaker 2: Right, So, like I said, like these guys were saying, like,
10:04
Speaker 2: come on, we got to get going, Like Airbus is
10:06
Speaker 2: already several steps ahead, and we need to get this
10:08
Speaker 2: thing out so people can start ordering before Airbus just
10:12
Speaker 2: sucks all of the market share out of US. I
10:14
Speaker 2: saw that they put countdown clocks for different deadlines all
10:19
Speaker 2: throughout the office, in meeting rooms, conference rooms, there was
10:22
Speaker 2: constantly a clock counting down while you were at work. Yeah,
10:26
Speaker 2: engineers got the impression. And sometimes we're told directly like
10:29
Speaker 2: keep your mouth shut.
10:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:31
Speaker 2: The head of the project for the seven thirty seven
10:34
Speaker 2: Max people didn't report directly to them anymore. They reported
10:37
Speaker 2: to their heads, and their heads may or may not
10:39
Speaker 2: have told that project manager about any problems that came up.
10:44
Speaker 2: So this whole rushed project also had like an aura
10:48
Speaker 2: of just keep your mouth shut, do not do anything
10:51
Speaker 2: to delay this.
10:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, as we'll see later,
10:55
Speaker 1: there were whistleblowers. But when it takes a like somebody
10:58
Speaker 1: requesting whistleblow or protection to come forward, especially with I
11:02
Speaker 1: mean in any corporation, but especially when it's something that's
11:05
Speaker 1: dealing with like public safety, that's not how it should be.
11:09
Speaker 1: You know, you should be able to to say hey,
11:11
Speaker 1: at your work, this is without fear of being of
11:13
Speaker 1: a reprisal. You know, like, we're not doing the right
11:15
Speaker 1: thing here, right.
11:16
Speaker 2: And it used to be you didn't even need to
11:18
Speaker 2: whistle blow. You would go to the executives and be like, hey,
11:20
Speaker 2: this is a real problem, this is not safe, and
11:22
Speaker 2: they would listen to you. That wasn't the case anymore.
11:27
Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
11:28
Speaker 2: Sure?
11:29
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
11:31
Speaker 1: with the design phase right after this. All right, we're back.
11:52
Speaker 1: I know we talked a little bit at first about
11:54
Speaker 1: how they decided to sort of revamp this decade's old
11:58
Speaker 1: fleet design wise, instead of starting from scratch with all
12:01
Speaker 1: this great new technology. But that's what they did. They
12:04
Speaker 1: took that seven thirty seven body, they made a lot
12:07
Speaker 1: of changes, It added bigger engines. And one of the
12:10
Speaker 1: things that was the result, and they knew this by
12:13
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, basically was that they had created a problem,
12:17
Speaker 1: a balance problem, whereas at certain speeds you could potentially
12:22
Speaker 1: go into a stall because the airplane's nose drifted upward.
12:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they basically took the same plane and just
12:29
Speaker 2: put giant engines that the plane was never designed for,
12:33
Speaker 2: and it just knocked it out of balance. Right, And
12:37
Speaker 2: you would say, well, why didn't they just move the wings.
12:39
Speaker 2: There was a good reason they didn't move the wings,
12:41
Speaker 2: because the more changes you make to an airplane, the
12:44
Speaker 2: more likely it is that all the pilots at all
12:46
Speaker 2: the different airlines that fly that plane are going to
12:49
Speaker 2: need updated training. Right, the FA will require it. Airlines
12:53
Speaker 2: don't like that. That's an added cost to the plane
12:56
Speaker 2: you're selling them, So they did. They bent themselves into
13:00
Speaker 2: pretzels trying to avoid making actual big changes. They just tried.
13:07
Speaker 2: They were playing whack a mole with all the problems
13:09
Speaker 2: that came up, with an eye toward not actually doing
13:12
Speaker 2: the one thing that would solved the problem, which is
13:14
Speaker 2: redesigned the wings. So what they came up with instead
13:17
Speaker 2: was some software that would take over and make the
13:21
Speaker 2: nose go back level whenever it got out of a
13:27
Speaker 2: suitable angle of attack.
13:28
Speaker 1: It's called yeah, it's called the And this is the
13:31
Speaker 1: real sort of well I was going to say the
13:34
Speaker 1: real villain, but the real villains were the humans behind
13:36
Speaker 1: this decision. But we're talking about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
13:41
Speaker 1: System the MCAS, and this thing, like you said, I
13:45
Speaker 1: don't know if it was clear, but it literally takes
13:47
Speaker 1: over controls of the plane and takes like supposedly takes
13:52
Speaker 1: care of the issue for the pilot instead of saying like, hey,
13:56
Speaker 1: you know, let's redesign this plane or at least train
13:59
Speaker 1: these pilots to rectify this on their own with with
14:01
Speaker 1: their hands on on the wheel. Now, what's that thing.
14:04
Speaker 2: Called the stick? I think they call it the stick?
14:07
Speaker 1: Is it the stick in big planes too? Probably, I'm
14:09
Speaker 1: pretty sure, just a larger stick. Yeah, the big on
14:12
Speaker 1: the truck, the big stick. They said, we designed this
14:16
Speaker 1: wizbang software that's going to do that for you. And
14:20
Speaker 1: when they went around to test flight mode, I think
14:24
Speaker 1: it was like twenty sixteen, the MCAS was still a
14:29
Speaker 1: pretty small part of this whole thing, but it was
14:30
Speaker 1: part of the aircraft.
14:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then they started testing this new design and
14:34
Speaker 2: simulators and I know, at least once, I think in
14:37
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, they the I think the head test pilot
14:43
Speaker 2: for Boeing took ten seconds to override the mcast and
14:48
Speaker 2: crashed and they were like, oh, okay, we need to
14:50
Speaker 2: keep working on this. So again they're back to playing
14:53
Speaker 2: whack a mole. Like the band aid that they put
14:56
Speaker 2: on the issue of the imbalance, which was the software
14:59
Speaker 2: now has its own so now they're fixing those, and
15:01
Speaker 2: then that would bring up more bugs and more bugs,
15:03
Speaker 2: so they had to fix those and those and those,
15:06
Speaker 2: And this was where the design for the Boeing seven
15:10
Speaker 2: thirty seven Max like really started to get out of hand.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because like I said, it was a
15:17
Speaker 1: pretty small part of the system at first. It had
15:19
Speaker 1: kind of that one function I think initially, or was
15:22
Speaker 1: supposed to. But by the time you're playing whack the mole,
15:25
Speaker 1: it keeps growing and growing and you're like, well, then
15:27
Speaker 1: the software will solve this problem, and then the software
15:29
Speaker 1: should solve this problem, and all of a sudden as
15:32
Speaker 1: it's interacting with these plane systems. It's a huge part
15:36
Speaker 1: of flying this plane.
15:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they had to integrate it with the existing software.
15:40
Speaker 2: They couldn't redo the software or the flight controls or else. Again,
15:44
Speaker 2: you have pilot training that you've just triggered, right, So
15:47
Speaker 2: they were just basically hammering this thing into place as
15:50
Speaker 2: best they could. The way that it finally worked was
15:54
Speaker 2: there were two sensors on the nose that since the
15:59
Speaker 2: angle of the plane right, and when the sensors sent
16:04
Speaker 2: information saying, hey, this plane's at way too steep of
16:07
Speaker 2: an angle, it could stall out if it goes any further.
16:11
Speaker 2: If it goes any further up, the MCAST system literally,
16:16
Speaker 2: like you said, took over the flight controls and then
16:18
Speaker 2: leveled the plane back out. Right. There was a huge
16:22
Speaker 2: issue that they made it. They designed it which still
16:26
Speaker 2: befuddles engineers aerospace engineers today, so that only one of
16:31
Speaker 2: those sensors saying the plane's angle was wrong could trigger
16:35
Speaker 2: the MCAST. Like, there was no redundancy. So if one
16:40
Speaker 2: of those sensors was faulty and the other was fine,
16:42
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. The faulty one was going to tell
16:44
Speaker 2: the MCAST to level out, even if the plane's angle
16:48
Speaker 2: wasn't actually an issue.
16:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the whole idea there is, if one sensor
16:53
Speaker 1: goes off, you want to have that other sensor that
16:56
Speaker 1: aligns with it and says, yeah, we're getting the same
16:58
Speaker 1: readings or whatever, which is you know, it's that backup,
17:01
Speaker 1: it's that redundancy that you need. You need that matching
17:04
Speaker 1: data before that thing engages itself. So they said, you
17:09
Speaker 1: know what, we've done our calculations, and we think it's
17:13
Speaker 1: much simpler this way, and the risk of catastrophic failure
17:17
Speaker 1: is quote almost inconceivable. Yeah, I think they figured the
17:20
Speaker 1: probability was one per two hundred and twenty three trillion
17:24
Speaker 1: hours of flight. So they said, you know what, we
17:27
Speaker 1: don't need this redundancy, it's not necessary.
17:29
Speaker 2: Which is still it's just insane, like that is a
17:32
Speaker 2: basic principle. Redundancy is a basic principle of any engineering, right,
17:36
Speaker 2: And it's just I don't I still couldn't find why
17:39
Speaker 2: they made that decision, why it was so much harder
17:41
Speaker 2: for that to have the sensors have to match. It's
17:44
Speaker 2: just nuts. But as we'll see, somebody clearly forgot to
17:47
Speaker 2: carry the one because that that calculation they came up
17:50
Speaker 2: with for that probability was not yeah, correctrect So there
17:55
Speaker 2: was another thing that they did. They didn't tell anybody
17:58
Speaker 2: about the mcast.
18:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the one that really gets me.
18:02
Speaker 2: They created this was brand new. No one had ever
18:06
Speaker 2: created something like the mcast before. It wasn't like they
18:09
Speaker 2: took an existing software and just kind of redesigned it.
18:12
Speaker 2: They made new software to do a brand new thing
18:15
Speaker 2: that hadn't been done before. And then they didn't tell
18:18
Speaker 2: anyone about it. And again, just want to reiterate, the
18:22
Speaker 2: MCAST took over the controls from the pilot. If you
18:25
Speaker 2: were the pilot, you were no longer in control of
18:28
Speaker 2: the plane while the MCAST was bringing the nose back
18:31
Speaker 2: down to a more suitable angle of attack. Imagine that
18:35
Speaker 2: happening and you having no idea what's going on because
18:37
Speaker 2: you don't know the MCAST exists.
18:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all of this is because they don't want
18:42
Speaker 1: to make the again, make the plane less appealing to
18:45
Speaker 1: buyers to airlines because they're gonna have to invest a
18:48
Speaker 1: lot of money in like pilot retraining and even as
18:51
Speaker 1: simple things as like you know, flight manuals and stuff
18:54
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, supposedly, I mean, it was reported at
18:57
Speaker 1: least that Boeing made a deal with Southwest Air that said, hey,
19:01
Speaker 1: if you buy enough planes from us, and if you
19:03
Speaker 1: don't require your special training for the pilots, like save
19:06
Speaker 1: yourself some money, we'll give you a discount on these planes.
19:10
Speaker 1: And Boeing lobbied the FAA, like actively lobbied them to
19:15
Speaker 1: allow them not to make any mention of the MCST
19:18
Speaker 1: in the manual, like we don't even want this in
19:20
Speaker 1: the flight manual, And the FAA said.
19:22
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, they said, okay, Boeing told them that it
19:26
Speaker 2: was such a minor part of an already existing system,
19:29
Speaker 2: I think the existing air speed sensor system, that it
19:32
Speaker 2: was not worth mentioning, and the FAA, like you said,
19:36
Speaker 2: they're like, sure, that's fine. They also didn't even put
19:39
Speaker 2: an indicator light for it in there. That's how secret
19:42
Speaker 2: they kept this thing, so you would have no idea
19:45
Speaker 2: it was on right, So this was like that was
19:49
Speaker 2: you might be stunned that the FAA just went along
19:52
Speaker 2: with that. It also shows you that they didn't They
19:55
Speaker 2: had no idea what the m cast was. They didn't
19:58
Speaker 2: go and look and say, well, let us see if
20:00
Speaker 2: it's actually important or not tell us what this thing is.
20:04
Speaker 2: Later on, FAA officials, some of them would testify they
20:07
Speaker 2: didn't get the mcast, they didn't understand what it was,
20:10
Speaker 2: and they really were encouraged not to ask too many questions,
20:13
Speaker 2: so they just said, sure, if you guys don't think
20:15
Speaker 2: that it's worth mentioning, we won't make you.
20:19
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, and you know this is all you know,
20:21
Speaker 1: how I mentioned the beginning part of the systemic failures
20:24
Speaker 1: of just how things work, So we should talk a
20:26
Speaker 1: little bit about that. As far as the FAA is concerned,
20:30
Speaker 1: because when they were formed in nineteen fifty eight, it
20:33
Speaker 1: was pretty clear right out of the gate that their
20:36
Speaker 1: kind of co mandates could often be in conflict with
20:40
Speaker 1: one another, which was to promote the interest of the
20:42
Speaker 1: aviation industry and very important to promote the safety of
20:47
Speaker 1: the flying public. So they knew pretty quickly that like
20:50
Speaker 1: those like I said, those don't always align. So Congress
20:53
Speaker 1: in I think nineteen sixty seven said, all right, maybe
20:56
Speaker 1: we should have a new agency that really guides the
20:58
Speaker 1: safety side. So they created National Transportation Safety Board, and
21:02
Speaker 1: they're like, they'll they'll keep everybody safe and recommend regulations
21:06
Speaker 1: to the FAA to enforce, but they can't demand that.
21:10
Speaker 1: The FAA has never had to do the things that
21:13
Speaker 1: they're suggested to do.
21:14
Speaker 2: Right, it's just the NTSB is looking out for the
21:17
Speaker 2: safety but the FAA doesn't have to enact it because
21:20
Speaker 2: again that might conflict with the interests of the aviation industry.
21:24
Speaker 2: And that stuck out to me, Chuck, that the safety
21:27
Speaker 2: of the flying public isn't always in the interests of
21:30
Speaker 2: the aviation industry. It should one hundred percent of the
21:34
Speaker 2: time be in the interests of the aviation industry. Yeah,
21:39
Speaker 2: that's just my take, hot take.
21:42
Speaker 1: But what ended up happening was the FAA said, all right, well,
21:45
Speaker 1: you know, we're good at the industry stuff, so why
21:47
Speaker 1: don't we just let Boeing, like they know planes, why
21:49
Speaker 1: don't we let them handle their own certification process. And
21:53
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I mean, that seems to be sort of
21:55
Speaker 1: standard practice. It wasn't like some big exception was made, right.
21:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, they have a name for it, organizational designation authorization.
22:02
Speaker 2: The FAA can say, like you just said, you know
22:05
Speaker 2: a lot about what we want and what we require.
22:07
Speaker 2: We're just going to let you go through and verify
22:09
Speaker 2: that all this stuff adheres to FAA requirements and guidelines,
22:14
Speaker 2: and then you come back and tell us if it does.
22:18
Speaker 2: You plane maker, certify your own plane and tell us
22:22
Speaker 2: if we should certify it in turn. And that's exactly
22:27
Speaker 2: what it is. That's that process.
22:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, hey, here's what you do. Just do
22:32
Speaker 1: it all, then send me an email that just says
22:34
Speaker 1: all good.
22:35
Speaker 2: Right, write an email to the president, but like it's
22:38
Speaker 2: from me, and then I'll sign it.
22:41
Speaker 1: So this is part of a bigger problem that actually
22:44
Speaker 1: has a name. It's called regulatory capture, and it's this
22:48
Speaker 1: idea that when people are working closely together, like the
22:54
Speaker 1: FAA works closely with the airline industry and Boeing, that
22:59
Speaker 1: they know, they know these people, and they end up
23:02
Speaker 1: I don't want to necessarily say sighting, but they end
23:06
Speaker 1: up more sympathetic to the industry side than the public
23:11
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to be protecting because they don't work
23:14
Speaker 1: with the public at large every day. They work with
23:16
Speaker 1: these people every day exactly.
23:18
Speaker 2: That's the same reason why you should avoid ever agreeing
23:22
Speaker 2: to mediation instead of a lawsuit, because the mediators typically,
23:27
Speaker 2: even though they won't say they do, they will typically
23:30
Speaker 2: work for the people paying them, and the chances of
23:33
Speaker 2: your company that say you're going into mediation with hiring
23:38
Speaker 2: them again are far greater than you ever hiring them.
23:41
Speaker 2: It's not exactly the same thing, but it's they have
23:45
Speaker 2: a working relationship that just can't be avoided, and that
23:49
Speaker 2: also is supported by another issue called the revolving door.
23:53
Speaker 2: Regulatory capture is very much supported by the revolving door
23:56
Speaker 2: and vice versa, which is you are a friendly regulated
24:00
Speaker 2: and the company you're regulating later on is like, hey,
24:04
Speaker 2: we want to hire you. We think you've done a
24:07
Speaker 2: great job, and we want you to come work for
24:08
Speaker 2: us for gobs of money. And it can go the
24:11
Speaker 2: other way too. A friendly colleague can go become a regulator,
24:15
Speaker 2: and you know, you just kind of expect them to
24:17
Speaker 2: turn a blind eye when you need them to. That's
24:20
Speaker 2: just a huge problem, especially when you're talking about huge
24:24
Speaker 2: like life and death stuff like designing and certifying airplanes
24:29
Speaker 2: or you know, pharmaceutical makers and the FDA. They're frequently
24:33
Speaker 2: talked about as regulatory capture and a revolving door.
24:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm just a dummy podcaster, so I
24:41
Speaker 1: don't know how any of this stuff works. But it
24:44
Speaker 1: seems to me like there should be like a rule
24:46
Speaker 1: or a law that says, you know, choose your path,
24:50
Speaker 1: Like you can't go work for the FAA for ten
24:52
Speaker 1: years and then go work for Boeing right after that
24:55
Speaker 1: with some plumb job or some pharmaceutical company and then
24:58
Speaker 1: you go work for the FDA. Like it's just such
25:01
Speaker 1: an obvious conflict, you know.
25:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember if you and I recorded the
25:04
Speaker 2: episode on it or not. I feel like we did
25:07
Speaker 2: years back. I definitely wrote an article about this, and
25:10
Speaker 2: people have proposed that over the years. I think three
25:13
Speaker 2: years is typically the average, which makes sense, Like a
25:17
Speaker 2: lot of people change at a company in three years,
25:19
Speaker 2: so that would probably actually do it. But it's just
25:23
Speaker 2: like just added to the pile of problems that we
25:26
Speaker 2: have to solve to get things on track around here.
25:31
Speaker 1: I propose we take a sort of a quicker break
25:33
Speaker 1: here than we normally would because we've got the crashes
25:37
Speaker 1: coming up. And after that, it's you know, what do
25:41
Speaker 1: you think?
25:42
Speaker 2: I agree?
25:43
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not quite sure. I was trying to say there,
25:45
Speaker 1: but still, we'll be right back and we'll talk about
25:48
Speaker 1: what happened with these planes right after this.
26:07
Speaker 2: Okay, chuck, So we're back, and we're gonna go back
26:10
Speaker 2: to March twenty seventeen, and I guess this month is
26:16
Speaker 2: when the FAA certified the seven thirty seven Max eight
26:20
Speaker 2: to fly. A few months later, the Max nine was
26:23
Speaker 2: certified to fly, and both of these planes, I think
26:26
Speaker 2: they were the first seven thirty seven Maxes to hit
26:29
Speaker 2: the skies. And one thing you want to point out
26:32
Speaker 2: is when the FAA certifies a new plane to fly,
26:37
Speaker 2: they and the European the EU Aviation Authority they're basically
26:44
Speaker 2: their stamps tell the rest of the world like, these
26:46
Speaker 2: planes are fine, you can buy them and fly them,
26:48
Speaker 2: you can put them into your airline fleet. Other countries
26:52
Speaker 2: have their own aviation authority, sure, but they do not
26:54
Speaker 2: have the resources that like the FAA or the EU's
26:58
Speaker 2: Aviation Authority have, and so they're relied upon, Like their
27:02
Speaker 2: credibility is important worldwide. So this is why. One reason
27:07
Speaker 2: also it was such a big deal that the fa
27:09
Speaker 2: just completely fell down on the job.
27:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're supposed to be the gold standards worldwide,
27:16
Speaker 1: like you said.
27:16
Speaker 2: So.
27:16
Speaker 1: On October twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, Lion Air flight it
27:22
Speaker 1: was the seven thirty seven Max eight crashed into the
27:26
Speaker 1: Java Sea very shortly after takeoff from Indonesia, and the
27:31
Speaker 1: flight crew communicated with air traffic control that basically they
27:35
Speaker 1: were having trouble with flight control, they were having trouble
27:38
Speaker 1: with their altitude, and then the plane just disappears from radar,
27:42
Speaker 1: and I think it was about thirteen minutes later it
27:46
Speaker 1: plunged into the Java See at about four hundred miles
27:48
Speaker 1: an hour and killed all one hundred and eighty nine
27:51
Speaker 1: people on board.
27:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and all of this was I think, like
27:55
Speaker 2: you said, thirteen minutes after the plane took off. So
27:57
Speaker 2: that angle of attack thing. We know enough now to
28:00
Speaker 2: know what was going on. At the time, no one
28:03
Speaker 2: had any idea what was going on, and so Boeing said, oh,
28:08
Speaker 2: there's this thing called the mcast that we put in.
28:12
Speaker 2: Just here's some information about it, and if anything like
28:15
Speaker 2: this ever happens to you, here's the procedure to override
28:18
Speaker 2: it and you'll be all good. Just it was still
28:21
Speaker 2: it was pilot error, everybody. That's that's what the problem was.
28:24
Speaker 2: That's what Boeing blamed it on.
28:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was crash number one. Then, I guess
28:31
Speaker 1: about five months later, in March of twenty nineteen, an
28:33
Speaker 1: Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed near at Geer, Ethiopia. This was
28:39
Speaker 1: six minutes after takeoff, and all one hundred and fifty
28:43
Speaker 1: seven passengers and crew obviously on board, died.
28:46
Speaker 2: And that what made that crash even worse, Chuck, is
28:49
Speaker 2: that those airline pilots followed that procedure that Boeing had
28:54
Speaker 2: told the world about after the Lion airflight a few
28:58
Speaker 2: months before, and it still didn't work because there was
29:02
Speaker 2: a software glitch with the mcass and it kept reactivating
29:05
Speaker 2: and reactivating and they couldn't override it, and that's when
29:09
Speaker 2: it crashed. So even with this workaround that Boeing came
29:13
Speaker 2: up with, it still wasn't fixing the problem. And after
29:16
Speaker 2: that second crash, it was quite clear that Boeing had
29:20
Speaker 2: screwed up royally, and also that the FAA had let
29:24
Speaker 2: them do that and still certified these planes that were
29:28
Speaker 2: way too dangerous to carry human beings.
29:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole seven thirty seven Max fleet was grounded
29:34
Speaker 1: at that point for twenty months. It was the biggest
29:38
Speaker 1: sort of grounding like that in aviation history. It took
29:41
Speaker 1: out four hundred and fifty planes from the sky, and
29:43
Speaker 1: you know, its sindrils ran all throughout the airline industry,
29:46
Speaker 1: like travel stock prices, obviously Southwest. You know I mentioned
29:51
Speaker 1: like supposedly having that better deal, they had to ground
29:56
Speaker 1: I think thirty of their fifty eight plane stop.
30:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:01
Speaker 1: Fleet, fleet, that's the word, the fleet with the sticks,
30:04
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, it's clear I'm not an aviator,
30:07
Speaker 1: you guys. I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone,
30:09
Speaker 1: but governing bodies really kind of came in quickly. After
30:12
Speaker 1: that point, they launched investigations not just into Boeing but
30:16
Speaker 1: also into the FAA. And you know, they did the
30:19
Speaker 1: thing you do, which you start issuing statements like that
30:21
Speaker 1: are really angry, and then there are press releases and
30:25
Speaker 1: there are denials, and then CEOs come and go. Obviously,
30:29
Speaker 1: lawsuits and at least one criminal charge would come and
30:34
Speaker 1: regulatory actions. But while this is going on, there's still
30:39
Speaker 1: like problems with this plane.
30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason they grounded all seven thirty seven
30:45
Speaker 2: max is everywhere in the world for twenty months. It
30:48
Speaker 2: was supposed to be a very short time, but it
30:50
Speaker 2: turned out to be twenty months is because these were
30:52
Speaker 2: brand new planes that dropped out of the sky. Remember
30:55
Speaker 2: that one in two hundred and thirty two trillion chants
30:59
Speaker 2: of the function, this is two. Yeah. The the Lion
31:03
Speaker 2: air plane had eight hundred hours of flight time. The
31:07
Speaker 2: Ethiopian air had just thirteen hundred and thirty hours. Yeah,
31:10
Speaker 2: so this happened two times in just twenty one hundred
31:13
Speaker 2: and thirty flight hours.
31:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:15
Speaker 2: Boy, there's some some Josh Clark matth in there that
31:17
Speaker 2: we just edited out, chuck, right.
31:20
Speaker 1: So in October twenty eighteen, this is a year after
31:24
Speaker 1: that Lion Air crash, the CEO of who I mentioned
31:27
Speaker 1: earlier at the time, Dennis Muhlenberg, was called before Congress,
31:31
Speaker 1: which is what you do. You got to take your
31:33
Speaker 1: lumps and go in there and get yelled at, basically,
31:36
Speaker 1: and the whole time he's insisting the plane is safe
31:38
Speaker 1: and in that hearing and I remember watching some of
31:41
Speaker 1: this stuff. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said after that second crash,
31:47
Speaker 1: he met with Boeing reps in his office and they
31:49
Speaker 1: said what Josh Clark would say one day is that
31:52
Speaker 1: it was pilot air, which like, that's just complete fabrication.
31:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they yeah, it's just so scummy, you know,
32:01
Speaker 2: to be that responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people,
32:04
Speaker 2: terrible deaths, and then just to blame two people who
32:08
Speaker 2: are for people I guess who are blameless, and that's
32:11
Speaker 2: just I just think that's terrible. And you might say, well, okay,
32:15
Speaker 2: what's wrong with Muhlenberg. He was the one who inherited
32:17
Speaker 2: the problem. He's to blame because he didn't ground that
32:21
Speaker 2: the seven thirty seven maxes. The FAA made Boeing do that,
32:25
Speaker 2: so he had the option to do this. He had
32:27
Speaker 2: the opportunity to and he didn't.
32:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously the FAA, we've been
32:33
Speaker 1: pretty hard on here, and they were found responsible for
32:36
Speaker 1: good reason. There was a twenty twenty congressional report that
32:39
Speaker 1: said Boeing in the FAA jointly were responsible for these
32:44
Speaker 1: two plane crashes. And the FAA this whole time is
32:47
Speaker 1: insisting that it did the right thing. It's like, we,
32:51
Speaker 1: you know, did everything like we were supposed to as
32:53
Speaker 1: far as certification goes, but it seems to be a
32:58
Speaker 1: systemic thing where and stepped forward before this and said,
33:03
Speaker 1: you can't allow them to certify themselves because they may
33:05
Speaker 1: have been telling the truth when they said they follow
33:08
Speaker 1: a procedure, but the procedure was wrong exactly.
33:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when that report came out, the shares of
33:14
Speaker 2: bow of Boeing plummeted as far as fines go and
33:19
Speaker 2: actual money that they had to shell out from this. Yeah,
33:23
Speaker 2: that FA fined Boeing seventeen million dollars in twenty twenty one,
33:27
Speaker 2: seventeen million with an m yeah, for using unapproved or
33:33
Speaker 2: non conforming parts or mislabeling the parts. Neither of these
33:37
Speaker 2: those things had anything to do with the crashes. So
33:40
Speaker 2: Boeing was never fined for those two crashes by the FAA.
33:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, was that just them trying to be like, hey,
33:47
Speaker 1: let's slap them with something so the public sees that
33:50
Speaker 1: had like that's.
33:50
Speaker 2: My interpretation, Yes, And that's the the little pussy cat
33:57
Speaker 2: bite that they came up with, right, Is that a thing?
34:01
Speaker 1: Wow? Sure.
34:02
Speaker 2: The other thing is is the FAA didn't start issuing
34:05
Speaker 2: penalties like that until the Justice Department filed suit against
34:09
Speaker 2: Boeing for defrauding the United States government by saying this
34:14
Speaker 2: thing is fine, you can go ahead and certify at FAA.
34:18
Speaker 2: And there was actually a criminal misconduct facet to the
34:22
Speaker 2: whole thing as well. And I think Boeing negotiated a
34:25
Speaker 2: two point five billion dollar payment are fine to the
34:30
Speaker 2: United States to basically say like, just here, make this
34:33
Speaker 2: go away. Here's some money. They also had to pay
34:36
Speaker 2: eight point three billion dollars to the airlines and then
34:40
Speaker 2: man the victims families all I think three hundred and
34:44
Speaker 2: forty five victims families. There was one hundred million dollar
34:47
Speaker 2: pot set aside for them as part of this negotiated
34:52
Speaker 2: agreement with the Justice Department. That's the thing that I
34:56
Speaker 2: saw though. When I was looking that up, chuck on
34:59
Speaker 2: like like a Google search or whatever. Yeah, the reporting
35:03
Speaker 2: on it said that Boeing is dedicating one hundred million
35:06
Speaker 2: dollars to victims. Families Almost across the board, all of
35:09
Speaker 2: the rere like they weren't forced to. It's disgusting because
35:13
Speaker 2: it also shows that all of these outlets were basically
35:15
Speaker 2: just copying the Boeing press release.
35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, you did mention a criminal charge.
35:22
Speaker 1: There was one. There was one individual that faced criminal charges.
35:26
Speaker 1: It was a former lead technical pilot named Mark Forlkner,
35:30
Speaker 1: and he is the guy who convinced the FAA that
35:35
Speaker 1: the MCST was not something worthy of including in the
35:38
Speaker 1: flight manual. I think it was exposed later on in
35:41
Speaker 1: internal emails. He was frustrated about mcast in the email
35:45
Speaker 1: and he said, quote I basically lied to the FAA
35:49
Speaker 1: end quote. And he was found not guilty of defrauding
35:52
Speaker 1: federal regulators. And that was that was the only person
35:56
Speaker 1: to be brought up on criminal charges.
35:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. After that, the JAY said, Okay, we're closing this case.
36:02
Speaker 2: It's done. As you can imagine, the families of the
36:07
Speaker 2: victims were not at all happy with any of this. Yeah,
36:10
Speaker 2: so the whole thing put to rest. Everybody's moving on.
36:15
Speaker 2: This is what was that twenty twenty one, I think
36:18
Speaker 2: when that whole thing got settled. Yeah, And then three
36:22
Speaker 2: years later, less than three years later, there was another
36:26
Speaker 2: catastrophic incident with another Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
36:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I remember when this one happened, after all
36:34
Speaker 1: the other stuff, it was just like what is because
36:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there was this weird certain
36:39
Speaker 1: amount of national pride with Boeing even at one point,
36:43
Speaker 1: like I remember growing up hearing about like Boeing, like
36:45
Speaker 1: this great company of engineers, like these brilliant people. And
36:49
Speaker 1: then by the time this happened in twenty twenty four,
36:52
Speaker 1: I'm not even in like a plane head, and I
36:54
Speaker 1: was like, what is happening with this like once great company?
36:57
Speaker 1: And that's when Alaska Airlines flight depressurized rapidly at sixteen
37:02
Speaker 1: thousand feet because a door plug blew out and there
37:06
Speaker 1: was a hole in the side of the plane.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Door plug is essentially a panel that covers an
37:10
Speaker 2: unused emergency exit, and that panel came off, blew off,
37:16
Speaker 2: and just by total luck or the grace of God,
37:20
Speaker 2: depending on your view, of what's going on behind the universe.
37:25
Speaker 2: There was nobody seated right there. Yeah, And the reason
37:28
Speaker 2: why this was lucky is because parts of the seats
37:31
Speaker 2: were sucked out, and there would be a good chance
37:34
Speaker 2: that a human sitting in one of those seats would
37:37
Speaker 2: have been sucked out. At sixteen thousand feet, it's mind
37:40
Speaker 2: boggling that nobody was killed or I think seriously injured.
37:44
Speaker 2: Even than that. It's just it was it could have
37:47
Speaker 2: been so bad and lucky for Boeing it wasn't.
37:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Initial reports intigated that they couldn't find the bolts
37:57
Speaker 1: that were to hold that plug in place, and then
38:00
Speaker 1: apparently there were signs that they never maybe there were
38:02
Speaker 1: never bolts in place to begin with, and that a
38:05
Speaker 1: Boeing worker removed that door plug for some routine maintenance
38:09
Speaker 1: didn't put the bolts back in. At this point, the
38:12
Speaker 1: FAA is like, all right, this can't you know? This
38:16
Speaker 1: is such a public thing. After the disaster of the
38:18
Speaker 1: two crashes, they grounded the planes again. They said, quote,
38:22
Speaker 1: this should never have happened and it cannot happen again.
38:26
Speaker 1: And when they did follow up investigations, it, I mean,
38:30
Speaker 1: it seemed kind of like a clown show going on
38:33
Speaker 1: at Spirit Aero Systems that like the factory where these
38:36
Speaker 1: things were being put together.
38:37
Speaker 2: One of their suppliers, Yeah, this was not good a
38:40
Speaker 2: good look. There were assemblers who were in charge of
38:44
Speaker 2: putting plane stuff together. They were jump up and down
38:48
Speaker 2: on airplane parts and like kick it into place to
38:51
Speaker 2: make the drill holes line up the way that they
38:53
Speaker 2: should a part like that for something like an airplane,
38:57
Speaker 2: and the Boeing of yesteryear would have immediately been sent
38:59
Speaker 2: back and supplier would have been sweating that they were
39:02
Speaker 2: going to get dropped for somebody else. That's not the case,
39:05
Speaker 2: or that certainly wasn't the case with their vendor. Spirit.
39:09
Speaker 2: There were other problems that also came up with the
39:12
Speaker 2: Max too that were didn't even have anything to do
39:15
Speaker 2: with the mcast, but were still both potentially catastrophic themselves.
39:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was an air pressure sensor that seems pretty
39:24
Speaker 1: vital to me as a nonpilot that would ensure that
39:27
Speaker 1: pilots had enough air to not lose consciousness. I guess
39:30
Speaker 1: in the event of something better, it.
39:32
Speaker 2: Should be important to you as a passenger.
39:33
Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, it is. They also found loose bolts in
39:37
Speaker 1: the rudder system. And by this point, like it's pretty
39:42
Speaker 1: obvious that the FAA was complicit and this whole sort
39:46
Speaker 1: of shoddy operation going down with the seven thirty seven Max.
39:51
Speaker 1: They were non compliant with FAA regulations. And if the
39:55
Speaker 1: FAA's saying they don't know about that, then that's on there.
39:58
Speaker 2: There was no argument or justification that FAA could put
40:03
Speaker 2: forward that exonerated them in even a little bit, you know.
40:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And here's the thing. Before that door plug blew out,
40:11
Speaker 1: just before that, the FAA had gone to Congress and said, hey,
40:15
Speaker 1: I think it's all good now, can we go back
40:16
Speaker 1: to letting Boeing certify their own planes? And then after
40:20
Speaker 1: that door blowout they or plug blowout, they withdrew that request.
40:24
Speaker 2: And this is the last CEO, Dave Calhoun. The reason
40:28
Speaker 2: he was a problem or an issue as well is
40:31
Speaker 2: because he didn't change Boeing enough for this door plug
40:35
Speaker 2: incident to not happen. So there was there were two
40:39
Speaker 2: high profile whistleblower deaths. Thirty two people came forward to
40:43
Speaker 2: seek whistleblower federal protection to complain against Boeing. Two of
40:50
Speaker 2: them died, and it turns out both of them died well,
40:54
Speaker 2: one died by suicide, another one died of MRSA, so
40:58
Speaker 2: I guess natural disease. But the guy who died by suicide,
41:03
Speaker 2: of course, there was a conspiracy theory that he was
41:05
Speaker 2: actually murraid. He had just given a deposition in Charleston
41:09
Speaker 2: when he was found dead of a gunshot wound in
41:12
Speaker 2: his truck in a holiday in parking lot where he
41:14
Speaker 2: was staying after giving that deposition. And apparently there's all
41:20
Speaker 2: sorts of evidence, including CCTV or security camera footage that
41:24
Speaker 2: show that this was suicide. The point is that doesn't
41:28
Speaker 2: exonerate Boeing in his suicide note, he actually named Boeing
41:32
Speaker 2: as a huge reason for this, because they ruined his life.
41:35
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, he requested to be buried face down
41:38
Speaker 1: so they could quote kiss his ass.
41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
41:41
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, it very very sad obviously. So they
41:45
Speaker 1: are identifying all these issues with the seven thirty seven MAX.
41:50
Speaker 1: The most scathing stuff obviously would come from the NTSB
41:54
Speaker 1: because their separate from the AAA, and they basically have
41:58
Speaker 1: taken to bypassing the FAA by issuing their own safety
42:03
Speaker 1: notices directly and not like going through them. Yeah, and
42:06
Speaker 1: I think in June twenty twenty five. Just last year,
42:10
Speaker 1: they issued a bulletin of a possible engine problem on
42:13
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven Max.
42:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like airlines should should alert you.
42:19
Speaker 2: I know they're not going to, but I feel like
42:21
Speaker 2: they should give you a choice, like this is a
42:24
Speaker 2: seven thirty seven Max.
42:25
Speaker 1: Well you can see what plane it is like when
42:28
Speaker 1: you book the flight.
42:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that they switch them sometimes too.
42:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna start looking though, man, after this, Oh.
42:34
Speaker 2: I do, I do. I don't think I've ever been
42:37
Speaker 2: on board a Max, but I feel like it's just
42:39
Speaker 2: the roll of the dice every time, you know.
42:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, It's something I'm paying a lot
42:45
Speaker 1: more attention to now. Obviously.
42:47
Speaker 2: We also can't not mention another thing that happened after
42:52
Speaker 2: the Alaska Airline blowout that had nothing to do with
42:57
Speaker 2: their airline division or airplane division, but still was Boeing
43:01
Speaker 2: and it was a terrible look. It was an aerospace thing.
43:05
Speaker 2: When the star Liner test flight to the ISS did
43:09
Speaker 2: not go very well.
43:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, they, I mean, there were a lot of failures there.
43:13
Speaker 1: We're not going to get into all of them, but
43:14
Speaker 1: it was a test flight carrying a couple of astronauts
43:17
Speaker 1: to the ISS and they ended up stuck there. I
43:21
Speaker 1: think it was supposed to be a little more than
43:23
Speaker 1: a week and it turned into nine months and SpaceX
43:26
Speaker 1: had to go get them.
43:28
Speaker 2: It's just not a good look, right, it's not. I mean,
43:31
Speaker 2: luckily Wilmore and Williams, the two astronauts made it back
43:35
Speaker 2: to Earth safely, and the star Liner uncrude remotely controlled
43:39
Speaker 2: made it back to Earth safely. But still it's just
43:43
Speaker 2: like your stock price goes down every time. And the
43:46
Speaker 2: reason I mentioned it is because every step of the
43:48
Speaker 2: way with the seven thirty seven Max, all of it
43:51
Speaker 2: followed that like psychopathic corporate logic, where the shareholder's return
43:56
Speaker 2: on investment is the most important thing. It is more
43:59
Speaker 2: important in morality, safety, practicality, sensibility, anything, right. And so
44:06
Speaker 2: the whole like sad trombone like twist, I guess is
44:12
Speaker 2: that the seven thirty seven Max cost Boeing investors eighty
44:17
Speaker 2: seven billion dollars right over the six years from twenty
44:21
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty twenty four. It didn't make them money.
44:24
Speaker 2: It cost them money in share price drops over and
44:28
Speaker 2: over and over again, because one thing after another just
44:32
Speaker 2: kept going and Airbus was eating Boeing's lunch all of
44:35
Speaker 2: these years too.
44:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a I mean there's a lesson in there.
44:40
Speaker 1: No one will heat it, of course, but there's a lesson.
44:43
Speaker 2: Yes there is, Chuck, You got anything else?
44:47
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I mean, they're they're still out there, right,
44:49
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven Max.
44:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got recertified by the FAA. I think the
44:54
Speaker 2: last one was towed out of groundage. I don't know
44:57
Speaker 2: if that's the word or not the union saying. And
45:00
Speaker 2: it was declared ready for delivery to China on August
45:04
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. So there is a very
45:07
Speaker 2: good chance that you will fly on a seven thirty
45:10
Speaker 2: seven Max at some point in your life if you
45:12
Speaker 2: fly a lot.
45:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:15
Speaker 2: Oh, and also just real quick, they also have the
45:17
Speaker 2: Max seven and the Max nine are the newest ones,
45:19
Speaker 2: and they're having trouble getting those certified because they're having
45:23
Speaker 2: an issue that they are can't figure out how to
45:26
Speaker 2: fix yet. Yeah.
45:29
Speaker 1: Software is a great thing. So I'm not bagging on
45:32
Speaker 1: the software industry, but like, I have a car that
45:35
Speaker 1: has like a lot of newer cars are like very
45:38
Speaker 1: software based, as a lot of people know. Yeah, and
45:41
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll just do something.
45:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had our brick once.
45:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens. I've seen it happen in my own car,
45:48
Speaker 1: and like, that's not a plane with hundreds of passengers,
45:51
Speaker 1: you know, No.
45:52
Speaker 2: No, thankfully we were parked and couldn't get it back on.
45:54
Speaker 2: But yeah, I can't imagine how terrifying that would be
45:57
Speaker 2: if if it happened while you were driving, you know. Yeah,
46:01
Speaker 2: we should also say talking about software, it was widely
46:03
Speaker 2: reported that Boeing had hired had outsourced their software coding
46:08
Speaker 2: to Indian companies to curry favor with India so they
46:11
Speaker 2: could sell more jets there. That's true. I think they
46:15
Speaker 2: were recent college graduates who were being paid nine dollars
46:19
Speaker 2: an hour, who were entrusted with very important software stuff.
46:22
Speaker 2: But none of them worked on the mcast, right, which
46:25
Speaker 2: was the thing that caused those two crashes.
46:27
Speaker 1: Obvious, that's right.
46:29
Speaker 2: I think that's it for the seven thirty seven. Max.
46:33
Speaker 2: I got to dedicate this one to my dad because
46:35
Speaker 2: he's the one who gave me my interest in engineering,
46:38
Speaker 2: because he was an engineer.
46:40
Speaker 1: All these yehes, I knew that that's great.
46:42
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck said that was great that I just
46:44
Speaker 2: dedicated this episode to my dad as foretold in two
46:47
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. We just opened listener mail here in
46:50
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six.
46:54
Speaker 1: All right, this is from Alexa from Seattle. It's a
46:56
Speaker 1: short and suitet. Hey, guys, just wanted to add to
46:59
Speaker 1: the topic of the cherry blossom trees. And I remember
47:02
Speaker 1: when we recorded this, I was like, I know, there's
47:04
Speaker 1: some places that are known for their cherry blossoms that
47:07
Speaker 1: were not going to mention, and luckily Alexa wrote in
47:11
Speaker 1: Seattle loves their cherry blossoms, guys. The quad at you
47:14
Speaker 1: Dub is probably the most popular spot for cherry blossom viewing,
47:17
Speaker 1: and it's always packed with people. All over the city.
47:20
Speaker 1: You'll find cherry blossoms blooming and events themed around the
47:23
Speaker 1: cherry blossoms, including food items and anime conventions. Nice cherry
47:28
Speaker 1: blossoms bloom in the spring when we get random breaks
47:30
Speaker 1: from the bleak winter weather, and it's absolutely beautiful. And Alexa,
47:34
Speaker 1: I can confirm, but I think my first two trips
47:38
Speaker 1: to Seattle were in spring and I got like the
47:40
Speaker 1: best weather, and I think I saw cherry blossoms and
47:43
Speaker 1: I was like, what's the deal with this place being gloomy?
47:46
Speaker 1: Like this place is incredible.
47:48
Speaker 2: I remember that too. I think we've done at least five,
47:51
Speaker 2: maybe six shows there over the years, and this past
47:53
Speaker 2: one in January was the first time I ever rained
47:56
Speaker 2: while I was in Seattle.
47:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got big time seatle on this last trip
48:01
Speaker 1: we did.
48:01
Speaker 2: We did that was smart to choose a Seattle one
48:05
Speaker 2: because that's where Boeing's from, so that fits this one
48:07
Speaker 2: very nicely.
48:08
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
48:10
Speaker 2: That was from Alexa. That's right, Alexa, send email no thanks, Alexa,
48:16
Speaker 2: Oh my god. If you want to be like if
48:18
Speaker 2: you want to be like Alexa and send us an
48:20
Speaker 2: email and have us thank you like you're a robot,
48:22
Speaker 2: we will do that. All you have to do is
48:25
Speaker 2: send your email off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
48:34
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48:37
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