Windows bursting mid-flight. Wheels falling during take-off. A whistleblower found dead. Since the start of this year, the Seattle-born plane manufacturer Boeing has been embroiled in controversy and accidents back-to-back. Whatever happened with the company to cause such a fall from grace?
The Seattle company was founded in 1916 after William E. Boeing, inspired by an aviation show, built and flew his first plane. Boeing then brought on more staff and engineers to keep the company afloat. Eventually, after an order and connection with the United States Navy, the company struck gold.
Since then, the Boeing company has strived for innovation and optimization. While Boeing’s Defense, Security & Service division brings in the most profits, its Commercial Airplanes Division returns a third of said profits. As such, the division’s production and speed is essential to keeping the company running.
At the start of this saga is the Boeing 737 MAX, the fourth rendition of their existing 737. The plane began development in 2011, intended to compete with the Airbus 320neo developing at the same time. With such fierce competition though, Boeing rushed development to keep competing.
According to The Seattle Times, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was also delegating its minor safety checks for Boeing themselves to conduct. Despite employees’ warning, managers hurried the 737 MAX’s certification to compete with the Airbus A320neo’s release.
Even having given enough tasks to Boeing, both split up more tasks and continued speeding up the process. As a result, very important documents and reviews were rushed and incomplete. Reviewers or managers would often give up and sign them off early to meet deadlines.
At last, the 737 MAX 8 was certified and flown commercially for the first time in early 2017. Besides a few issues fixed prior to this flight, the plane seemed to run without a hitch. Though, some were still worried about the rushed aspects of the planes like its existing type rating.
Those worries only worsened with the first 737 MAX 8 accident on October 29, 2018. Lion Air Flight 610, a domestic Indonesian flight, suffered a tug-of-war between pilots and an unknown correction system. The system won and plunged into the Java Sea, killing everyone aboard.
The culprit at hand was the undisclosed Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) that corrected the plane in case of extreme winds. Due to its supposedly rare circumstances, it was never mentioned in the pilot manual. However, the system received false info after takeoff and fought to bring the plane down, with no way for the pilots to stop it.
This wasn’t an isolated accident. Just five months later on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 suffered the same situation. The same MCAS was erroneously triggered and fought with the pilots to move the plane down, plummeting to the ground and killing everyone on board.
This crash was the tipping point for the media and public, who now wanted answers on how two flights could crash within half a year for identical reasons. Boeing and the FAA, however, denied any wrongdoing in the plane’s certification and refused to answer with any more details.
A Netflix documentary titled “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” only emphasizes the severity and negligence of Boeing. Director Rory Kennedy investigated a profit-over-people mentality that caused operations to continue even after the first crash. “It was going to cost them financially to ground that plane,” Kennedy explained in an interview with ABC7.
Another interview was conducted by NBC with Boeing whistleblower Ed Pierson. Pierson was concerned about the rush of production since its start, warning managers of defects and urging them to shut down production like militaries do. However, as he quotes in the interview, managers refused and replied “[The] military is not a profit-making organization.”
Soon after the crash, all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes were grounded and barred from commercial flight. The accidents cost the company way more than any safety checks or delays would have, making them take these current checks seriously. It wasn’t until a year later that most countries ungrounded the planes and returned to service, with less future risk in sight.
So how does this tie back into the present? While the Boeing 737 MAX 8’s issues were fixed, issues cropped back up with the release of the 737 MAX 9. This is no more evident than a recent Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, 2024, where a fuselage section broke open after takeoff.
Almost instantly, the discussion surrounding Boeing ignited again. While the media reported no serious injuries, passengers on board reported having to walk their relatives in wheelchairs after the flight. Alaska Airlines immediately grounded its 737 MAX 9s and launched investigations.
More and more issues were revealed after the event. The New York Times reported that the plane whose door blew open was actually flagged and barred from long flights prior. A later investigation by Alaska Airlines also revealed several loose screws in the grounded fleet.
Over the rest of January and February, Boeing faced numerous lawsuits from passengers on that flight as well as investigations from the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB. Boeing executive Ed Clark, who oversaw the 737’s development, was also ejected from his position.
Each internal and external review only found more issues and negligence within the company and its safety practices. A review from the NTSB showed missing bolts meant to hold the door in place. At the same time, an audit from the FAA showed safety malpractices with both Boeing and Spirit Airlines in building the planes.
By this point, the FAA had enough and put their foot down. Administrator Mike Whitaker met with Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and declared that the company had 90 days to make a plan for its safety issues. “Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements,” Whitaker stated.
Rather than complying, Boeing is only growing more suspicious with its recent behaviors. The same progressing FAA audit not only revealed malpractices within Boeing and Spirit, but also Boeing’s refusal to share details with them. Boeing stated in response that it couldn’t find documents requested by investigators.
To make matters worse, NTSB investigators also found that internal footage of the door plug’s development was overwritten and inaccessible. Though employees state that overwriting footage is common practice, it’s only more suspicious given Boeing’s behavior and refusal to share more information.
Most shocking of all was the recent death of a Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, on March 9 in his car. Barnett worked as a quality control manager until 2017, mainly assigned to the 787 Dreamliner. While he had some issues from his time at the company, he was in the middle of a case regarding Boeing’s retaliation against him as a whistleblower.
Amidst all these issues, their expected results started popping up across more of Boeing’s planes. On March 12, a 787 Dreamliner in New Zealand suffered a sudden nose dive that launched passengers into the ceiling and nearly broke through. A cause is yet to be determined.
Several issues with United Airlines were also shown throughout March. These include engine fires, falling tires, maintenance issues, hydraulic leaks, and even missing panels. Of the 11 reported issues, eight were from Boeing 7×7 series planes and three were from Airbus A320s.
Based on all of this, one can only assume that Boeing is in deep waters right now. And they’d be right. The company is being continuously slammed by lawsuiters and investigators alike for its past and continuing misdeeds. The company’s stock has also dropped massively, from $250/share at the start of January to hovering just above $180/share after the March accident.
Details are still unclear, investigations are still ongoing, and meetings are scheduled months away from now. However, Boeing continues to state that it’ll cooperate with investigators and work to determine the causes of these accidents. Whether this is honest is debatable.
For those planning any flights while afraid of these accidents, the chance of witnessing one is still very low. After all, air travel is still statistically the safest form of transportation. But if that doesn’t help, many airlines offer filtering options for plane models on their site.