Boeing 737 MAX Concepts

Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

by Peter Robison · 29 Nov 2021 · 382pp · 105,657 words

image by Lindsey Wasson/Reuters Cover design by Matt Dorfman Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Robison, Peter, author. Title: Flying blind : the 737 MAX tragedy and the fall of Boeing / Peter Robison. Description: First edition. | New York : Doubleday, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021006584 (print) |

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the Crash,’ ” Jakarta Post, November 1, 2018. “What’s MCAS?”: Andrew Tangel, Andy Pasztor, and Mark Maremont, “The Four-Second Catastrophe: How Boeing Doomed the 737 MAX,” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2019. Pilots for American: Author interview with Dennis Tajer, spokesman, Allied Pilots Association, May 2020. A Boeing manager asked: Author

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2019. “How unlucky”: Author interview with Javier de Luis, November 2019. The 737 remains: Final Committee Report on the Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 Max, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, September 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 17. approximates a 1990s Nintendo: Darryl Campbell, “The Ancient Computers in the

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Boeing 737 Max Are Holding Up a Fix,” Verge, April 9, 2020. once in every three million: David Shepardson, “Fatalities on Commercial Aircraft Rise in 2018,” Reuters, January

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and Security Review Commission, November 2005, http://www.uscc.gov. “In the old days”: Maureen Tkacik, “Crash Course: How Boeing’s Managerial Revolution Created the 737 MAX Disaster,” New Republic, September 18, 2019. When they reached: Karl Sabbagh, Twenty-First-Century Jet: The Making and Marketing of the Boeing 777, 162.

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Seattle Times, October 30, 1996. Boeing had computer software: Author interview with former Boeing engineer, September 2019. After one early: Mike Barber, “MAXimum Performer: New 737 MAX Will Build upon a Legacy of Accomplishment and Success,” Boeing Frontiers, December 2011/January 2012. Whoever yelled loudest: Author interview with anonymous industry source, July

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2019. “We’re going to make this”: Barber, “MAXimum Performer.” a “countdown clock”: Final Committee Report on the Design, Development and Certification of the Boeing 737 Max, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, September 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 17. The program’s chief engineer: House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

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. “I was saying, ‘Guys’ ”: Author interview with Richard Reed, November 2019. The MAX was actually: Final Committee Report, p. 5. For marketing: “Boeing Introduces 737 MAX with Launch of New Aircraft Family,” August 30, 2011, https://boeing.mediaroom.com. Over the next two years: Final Committee Report, p. 47. The proposal

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The FAA’s deputies at Boeing: Final Committee Report, p. 100. In 2014, Ewbank was among: Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, and Lewis Kamb, “Boeing Rejected 737 MAX Safety Upgrades Before Fatal Crashes, Whistleblower Says,” Seattle Times, October 2, 2019. FAA records showed: Curt Devine and Drew Griffin, “Boeing Relied on Single Sensor

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Peter Robison, “Boeing Is Killing It by Squeezing Its Suppliers,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February 14, 2018. “I just like airplanes”: Dominic Gates, “Beyond Pilot Trash Talk, 737 MAX Documents Reveal How Intensely Boeing Focused on Cost,” Seattle Times, January 10, 2020. One person who served: Author interview with anonymous former Boeing employee, November

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anonymous former Boeing pilot, October 2019. One longtime airline pilot: Author interview with anonymous former Boeing pilot, November 2019. Behind an innocuous-looking: Boeing, “737 Max E-cab Construction Underway,” June 25, 2014, https://www.boeing.com/features/2014/06/bca-737max-ecab-06-25-14.page. “right at first flight

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commercial/737max/news/the-e-cab-a-test-flight-deck.page. “With all the inexperience”: “Boeing Emails Handed Over.” “dogs watching TV”: “Boeing 737 MAX.” When someone wrote: “Boeing 737 MAX,” Hearing, p. 228. Forkner got nervous enough: House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Interview of Michael Teal, May 11, 2020, https://transportation.house

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Teal: House Committee, Interview of Michael Teal, p. 83. “All changes are minimal”: Final Committee Report on the Design, Development and Certification of the Boeing 737 Max, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, September 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 111. The same day Leverkuhn and Teal: Final Committee Report, pp. 100

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, p. 70. So the chief pilot: The actions taken to investigate failure scenarios of MCAS are described in Joint Authorities Technical Review of the Boeing 737 MAX Flight Control System, Observations, Findings, and Recommendations, October 11, 2019, p. 33; House Committee, Interview of Keith Leverkuhn, p. 66. “What happens when”: Final

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nonprofit Internet Archive, https://archive.org. Finally, in November 2016: Boeing Response to Question 7 and Related Questions; Joint Authorities Technical Review of the Boeing 737 MAX Flight Control System, Observations, Findings, and Recommendations, October 11, 2019, p. 34. “I was getting too expensive”: Author interview with Rick Ludtke, April 2019. “

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Oh I’m sure”: “Boeing Emails Handed Over.” Boeing’s engineers decided to defer: Final Committee Report, p. 124. “Things are calming down”: “Boeing 737 MAX,” Hearing, p. 64. Sitting in a hotel room: Boeing provided the instant messages to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and they were released

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Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, “Lion Air Crash: Indonesian Diver Dies During Search and Rescue Operation,” Straits Times, November 3, 2018. “We quickly identified”: “The Boeing 737 MAX: Examining the Design, Development and Marketing of the Aircraft,” Hearing Before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, October 30, 2019, https://www

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, 2018, AD #: 2018-23-51, available at https://theaircurrent.com. Earlier models had two: Mike Baker and Dominic Gates, “Boeing Altered Key Switches in 737 MAX Cockpit, Limiting Ability to Shut Off MCAS,” Seattle Times, May 10, 2019. Boeing had reports: Final Aircraft Accident Investigation Report published by the Komite Nasional

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Keselamatan Transportasi (KNKT), 169. “I think it is unconscionable”: Quoted in James Fallows, “Here’s What Was on the Record About Problems with the 737 Max,” Atlantic, March 13, 2019. “withheld information about”: Andy Pasztor and Andrew Tangel, “Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others,”

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Record Is Back in Spotlight,” New York Times, November 22, 2018. “Because the MAX”: Julie Johnsson, “Boeing Tumbles as Bad News Multiplies for Cash Cow 737 Max,” Bloomberg, November 13, 2018. Muilenburg held a briefing: Cited in Thomas P. DiNapoli, comptroller. “You may have seen”: Cited in Thomas P. DiNapoli. In

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, December 5, 2019, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 141. Fifteen crashes would be: Andy Pasztor and Andrew Tangel, “Internal FAA Review Saw High Risk of 737 MAX Crashes,” Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2019. 11. “THE DEATH JET” Sitting at the controls: Author interview with Dennis Tajer, May 2020. For Christmas:

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action, and people were working it with Boeing.” Boeing’s executives, in PowerPoint: The Boeing “MCAS Development and Certification Overview” presentation appears in “The Boeing 737 MAX: Examining the Design, Development and Marketing of the Aircraft,” Hearing Before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, October 30, 2019, https://www

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.govinfo.gov, p. 180. He called the crash: Final Committee Report on the Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 Max, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, September 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 213. Unusually for an aircraft: Steve Miletich, “Kirkland Consultant Questioned for Six

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Hours in Criminal Probe of Boeing 737 MAX Crashes,” Seattle Times, May 20, 2019. Not long after: Author interview with anonymous former Boeing pilot, May 2020. Kennedy got more than: Cited in Thomas

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March 10, 2019. Baffled, she went: Author interview, October 2019. the “roller coaster”: Dominic Gates, “Why Boeing’s Emergency Directions May Have Failed to Save 737 MAX,” Seattle Times, April 3, 2019. People just waking up: “ ‘Loud Rattling Sound’: Witnesses Say Ethiopian Plane Trailed Smoke,” SBS News, March 12, 2019. just a

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and author interviews. An operator at Boeing’s: Andrew Tangel, Alison Sider, and Andy Pasztor, “ ‘We’ve Been Humbled’: Boeing’s CEO Struggles to Contain 737 MAX Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2019. When James Burke: Dieudonnee Ten Berge, The First 24 Hours: A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Crisis Management; Andrew

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strong statement on the first, and be clear that there are no supporting facts on the second.” The statement Boeing released: Boeing, “Boeing Statement on 737 MAX Software Enhancement,” March 11, 2019, https://boeing.mediaroom.com. Muilenburg talked to Trump: Interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, DealBook conference, New York Times, November

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, p. 63. Satellite transponders: Jonathan Amos, “Satellite Plane-Tracking Goes Global,” BBC News, April 2, 2019. Estimates at the time: Robison and Johnsson, “Two 737 Max Crashes.” “I want to hear my kids”: Susan Ormiston, “ ‘My World Went Silent,’ Says Grieving Father Who Lost 5 Family Members As They Flew from

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Lead the Everett Division Through Layoffs, 777 Launch, Other Challenges.” A date had even: Final Committee Report on the Design, Development & Certification of the Boeing 737 Max, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, September 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 30. In late March: Julie Johnsson and Mary Schlangenstein, “Boeing Was

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instance: Boeing, “Boeing Statement on AOA Disagree Alert,” April 29, 2019, https://boeing.mediaroom.com. prosecute boeing & execs: Rupert Neate, “Boeing Boss Rejects Accusations About 737 Max Jets That Crashed,” Guardian, April 29, 2019. “Never mind the processes”: “Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Answers Questions at the Company’s Shareholder Meeting,” CNBC, April

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“Houdini moments”: Dominic Gates, “For Boeing, Juggling Cash Flow Means Another ‘Houdini Moment,’ ” Seattle Times, February 8, 2019. “You have to know”: “Status of the 737 Max,” Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, May 15, 2019, https://www.govinfo.gov/, p. 5

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Service/FSB Information Briefing,” April 12, 2019. “I’d say we come”: Dominic Gates, “Muilenburg Says Boeing Brings ‘A Tone of Humility and Learning’ over 737 MAX to Paris Air Show,” Seattle Times, June 16, 2019. Elwell told Muilenburg: Tangel, Sider, and Pasztor, “ ‘We’ve Been Humbled.’ ” The following Saturday: “In

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interview with Javier de Luis, November 2019. The FAA was running: Dominic Gates, “Newly Stringent FAA Tests Spur a Fundamental Software Redesign of Boeing’s 737 MAX Controls,” Seattle Times, August 1, 2019. “Remember, get right on”: U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Committee Investigation Report, Aviation Safety

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morning: Author interview with anonymous source, November 2019. “This is the smoking gun”: David Gelles and Natalie Kitroeff, “Boeing Pilot Complained of ‘Egregious’ Issue with 737 Max in 2016,” New York Times, October 18, 2019. “Dear Mr. Muilenburg”: Federal Aviation Administration, “Read the Letter—FAA,” October 18, 2019, https://www.faa

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May 2020. Barr told subordinates: Author interview with anonymous source, April 2021. When Michael walked in: David Slotnick, “Boeing’s CEO Met with Families of 737 Max Crash Victims After His Senate Testimony. Here’s What Happened Behind Closed Doors,” Business Insider, October 29, 2019. “They’re not human beings”: Author interview

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board: Author interview with anonymous source, April 2020. As part of a new: Eric M. Johnson, “Exclusive: Boeing Hires Pilots for Airlines to Help Relaunch 737 MAX,” Reuters, December 16, 2020. The effort was led: Author interviews with anonymous former Boeing pilots. “The loss of this critical”: SPEEA, “SPEEA Comments on

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customer Flight Training Airplane pilots, sending jobs to overseas contract house,” Business Wire, September 21, 2020. EPILOGUE Isom sat in: Andrew Tangel, “Boeing’s 737 MAX Returns to U.S. Commercial Service with American Airlines Flight,” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2020; Ryan Ewing, “What It’s Like to Fly the

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Times,” CBC, February 3, 2020. One of the most: Federal Aviation Administration, “2019-NM-035-AD The Boeing Company Model 737-8 and 737-9 (737 MAX) airplanes,” https://beta.regulations.gov. American had another reason: Author interview with anonymous source, December 2020. That first week: Edward Russell, “American Airlines Finds

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Travelers Not Avoiding the 737 Max as Many Feared,” Skift, January 5, 2021. “And they’re not”: Author interview with Floyd Wisner, May 2020. A law passed: U.S. Senate

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with anonymous sources, June 2021. “With its unique systems”: Federal Aviation Administration, “2019-NM-035-AD The Boeing Company Model 737-8 and 737-9 (737 MAX) airplanes,” https://beta.regulations.gov. Thirty years after: Howard Berkes, “Challenger Engineer Who Warned of Shuttle Disaster Dies,” NPR, March 21, 2016. “I said,

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‘Bob’ ”: Author interview with Allan McDonald, July 2019. Answering questions: Andy Pasztor and Andrew Tangel, “FAA, Boeing Blasted over 737 MAX Failures in Democratic Report,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2020. “I guess I’m not”: House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Interview of Ali Bahrami

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on Transportation and Infrastructure, Interview of Keith Leverkuhn, May 19, 2020, https://transportation.house.gov, p. 118. The direct cost: Chris Isidore, “Boeing’s 737 Max Debacle Could Be the Most Expensive Corporate Blunder Ever,” CNN Business, November 17, 2020. “Winning is good”: The 2017 JWMI MBA Graduation Ceremony, May 31

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig · 14 Jul 2019 · 2,466pp · 668,761 words

(MAP), 774, 797, 822 maximum expected utility (MEU), 405, 519, 565 maximum likelihood, 775, 776–780, 797 maximum margin separator, 710, 711 maximum mean discrepancy, 737 max norm, 564 Maxwell, J., 34, 426, 1027, 1105 Mayer, A., 127, 1098 Mayer, J., 734, 1105 Mayne, D. Q., 516, 985, 1098, 1100 Mayor, A

The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy

by David Gelles · 30 May 2022 · 318pp · 91,957 words

of metal protruding from the fuselage known as the angle of attack sensor, which measures the plane’s pitch. In doing so, they gave the 737 Max a single point of failure, something that is verboten in aviation engineering, where redundancy is baked into every critical safety system. Given that MCAS was

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Air Flight 610 took off from Jakarta with 189 people aboard, bound for a nearby island in Indonesia. The plane was a brand-new Boeing 737 Max, one of dozens purchased by Lion Air, a low-cost Indonesian airline. Moments after takeoff, the captain and first officer began to have trouble controlling

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plane was pointing up at a dangerous angle, and MCAS repeatedly nudged the nose of the Max down, ultimately sending it into a nosedive. The 737 Max, Boeing’s most important jet in a generation, had a terrible flaw. Yet at the highest levels of Boeing, there was a perplexing inability to

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deliveries of Boeing’s latest jet. The MCAS software update, which was expected early in 2019, was repeatedly delayed. Then, on March 10, 2019, a 737 Max departed Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, en route to Nairobi, Kenya. The regular flight was popular with diplomats and aid workers and was known as the “U

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to get the FAA to remove mention of the new software from the training manual. “I would walk before I was to get on a 737 Max,” said Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, adding, “You shouldn’t be cutting corners, and I see corners being cut.” Muilenburg held on for another

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at General Electric,” Stumo wrote, “when the company transitioned from making great products toward a finance-oriented approach.” There was no single reason that the 737 Max crashed twice in five months. The angle of attack sensors failed. MCAS was reliant on just one sensor. The pilots, overwhelmed, didn’t perform every

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.” Years of spending on buybacks and dividends had left many companies unprepared for a sharp downturn. Boeing, which was still trying to recover from the 737 Max disaster, had to lay off 30,000 employees, shutter production lines, and take a $12 billion loss. (It still managed to pay Calhoun, the CEO

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has written about CEOs, finance, technology, media, and more. He was part of the team that covered the fallout from the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets, work that won the 2020 Gerald Loeb Award for Breaking News Reporting. SimonandSchuster.com www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/David-Gelles @simonbooks We hope you

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-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world. “You don’t want to”: Dominic Gates and Mike Baker, “The inside story of MCAS: How Boeing’s 737 MAX system gained power and lost safeguards,” Seattle Times, June 22, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the-inside-story-of-mcas-how

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-boeings-737-max-system-gained-power-and-lost-safeguards/. “The timeline was extremely”: David Gelles, Natalie Kitroeff, Jack Nicas, and Rebecca R. Ruiz, “Boeing Was ‘Go, Go, Go

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’ to Beat Airbus With the 737 Max,” New York Times, March 23, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html. “This airplane is designed by clowns”: David Gelles, “ ‘I Honestly Don’t Trust Many People at

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York Times, January 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/business/boeing-737-employees-messages.html. “Frankly right now all”: David Gelles, “Boeing 737 Max Factory Was Plagued With Problems, Whistle-Blower Says,” New York Times, December 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/business/boeing

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-737-max-whistleblower.html. “That liberal asshole!”: Lane, Jacked Up, 130–131. “You’ve lost your mind”: Simone Foxman, “Twitter laughs at Jack Welch’s suggestion that

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,” New York Times, March 5, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/boeing-david-calhoun.html. Stumo penned an op-ed: A Boeing 737 Max crash killed my daughter. Boeing’s board and CEO don’t inspire optimism,” USA Today, Michael Stumo. January 17, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story

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–90, 126–30, 137, 186–94, 203 bailout, 224 Business Jet Project, 102, 119 Dave Calhoun as CEO, 189, 190–94, 224 Congressional investigations of 737 Max, 156, 189, 194 Covid-19 pandemic and, 224 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash (2019), 187–89, 190, 194 headquarters relocation to Chicago, 88–89, 219

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–87, 190 Jim McNerney as CEO, 113, 127–30, 153–54, 194, 200 Dennis Muilenburg as CEO, 154–56, 187–90 pension plan elimination, 128 737 Max with MCAS (737 redesign), 153–56, 186–90, 192–94, 224 787 Dreamliner, 128–30, 153, 190–91 whistleblower complaints to the FAA, 130, 190

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Century,” JW as (Fortune magazine), 7, 91–97, 114–15, 117, 118–19, 120, 146, 152, 159, 163, 198, 230 Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation (MCAS, Boeing 737 Max), 153–56, 186–90, 192–94, 224 market concentration, 79–80, 176–78, 219 Marriott International, 224 Martin, Roger, 38, 64, 68, 106–7 McAllister

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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 157–60 U.S. Census Bureau, 159 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 36 U.S. Congress: investigations of Boeing 737 Max, 156, 189, 194 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), 126 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 196, 198–99 U.S. Justice Department, Western Asset Mortgage Capital

Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom

by Grace Blakeley · 11 Mar 2024 · 371pp · 137,268 words

you don’t. PART I CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM 1 How to Get Away with Murder On October 29, 2018, Lion Air Flight 610—a Boeing 737 MAX plane—disappeared from the sky. Thirteen minutes after the flight took off from Jakarta International Airport, air traffic control lost communication with the pilot.1

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to understand the systems that would have allowed them to correct the error.5 In the meantime, another plane—Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, also a 737 MAX—had suffered the same fate as Lion Air 610. Flight 302 took off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport at 8:38 a.m. on

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down.12 The report confirmed that the crew and pilots had followed all the correct procedures but had been unable to prevent the catastrophe. The 737 MAX disasters came at a bad time for Boeing, which was literally putting out fires everywhere. The company’s previous plane, the 787 Dreamliner, was not

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gate for less than 60 percent of the 777’s unit costs in 2003.”20 This bid to boost returns was what lay behind the 737 MAX disasters. Without push back from the regulator, the FAA, “Boeing’s management prioritized the company’s profitability and stock price over everything else, including passenger

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only problem with larger engines is that they leave less room between the plane and the ground during takeoff and landing; the engines on the 737 MAX were huge, making this problem critical.23 As a result, the engines were moved forward, in front of the wing. But this created another problem

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this problem by changing the plane’s design, which would have been expensive, Boeing crafted a software fix. The company was intent on making the 737 MAX appear as similar to the 737 as possible to honor preexisting agreements with the airlines.27 Boeing’s clients wanted to limit modifications to the

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bought back $43.4 billion worth of shares, becoming a darling of Wall Street.35 Boeing’s employees were aware of the problems with the 737 MAX. Peter Robison, author of Flying Blind, details many examples of perspicacious warnings about the development and certification of the plane, which engineers blamed on the

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change things.”36 Where was the regulator during this debacle? The FAA had cleared the plane in under a year, allowing Boeing to deliver the 737 MAX early.37 Yet today it has become clear that the regulator certified the plane despite concluding that it did not meet existing safety standards (not

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1990s, the Department of Defense facilitated a merger between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, whose former CEO Stonecipher bore so much of the blame for the 737 MAX disasters.55 The state needed McDonnell Douglas to survive, as it provided critical components to the US Air Force. The firm was utterly “dysfunctional,” the

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in the company.56 There is a strong argument to be made that it was this cultural transition that created the environment within which the 737 MAX disasters took place—and it was a transition engineered by the US federal state.57 In the wake of the

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737 MAX disasters and in the context of a global pandemic that severely damaged the airline industry, Boeing might have come close to collapse in 2020. But

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, its ferocious drive to beat its rival Airbus is part of what explains the cost-cutting—and corner-cutting—that characterized the development of the 737 MAX. But even when market forces come knocking—say, in the form of a collapsing share price—the firm can rely on its political relationships to

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for which it had provided many components nose-dived out of the sky. United supplied Boeing with avionics, cabin components, and mechanical systems for the 737 MAX, and one of its subsidiaries—Rosemount—had supplied Boeing with the faulty angle-of-attack sensors that had played a role in the two crashes

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Ethiopian Airlines crash, United announced that it could lose $80 million in earnings as a result of Boeing’s decision to cut production of the 737 MAX. In 2018, United Technologies acquired Rockwell Collins and merged UTC Aerospace Systems—the part of the company that can trace its lineage back to Lucas

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Aerospace—to form Collins Aerospace.26 Collins continued to have a strong relationship with Boeing, providing inputs for its Boeing Business Jet 737 MAX—the private version of the 737 MAX.27 In 2020, UTC merged with Raytheon Technologies, one of the largest multinational aerospace and defense conglomerates on the planet.28 What

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the two paths we faced as a planet during the 1970s: total domination by capital, or sustainable, socialized, democratic production. The economy that produced the 737 Max disasters is no less centrally planned than that which produced the Lucas Plan; the main difference is that fifty years ago workers had an input

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-workers-rights. CHAPTER 1: HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER 1. The following account is a highly abridged version of the events surrounding the Boeing 737 MAX disasters. I have had to exclude a great deal of pertinent, and often shocking, information for the sake of brevity. I would highly recommend consulting

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for a fuller understanding of the events surrounding the disasters: Maureen Tkacik, “Crash Course,” New Republic, September 18, 2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-investigation-indonesia-lion-air-ethiopian-airlines-managerial-revolution; Alec MacGillis, “The Case against Boeing,” The New Yorker, November 11, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine

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/2019/11/18/the-case-against-boeing; Peter Robison, Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing (London: Penguin UK, 2021); Gregory Travis, “How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer,” IEEE Spectrum, April 18, 2019, https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-the-boeing

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-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer. 2. Sinéad Baker, “This Timeline Shows Exactly What Happened on Board the

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Lion Air Boeing 737 Max that Crashed in Less than 13 Minutes, Killing 189 People,” Insider, October 29, 2019

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, https://www.businessinsider.com/lion-air-crash-timeline-boeing-737-max-disaster-killed-189-2019-10. 3. Ibid. 4. Tkacik, “Crash Course.” 5. Ibid. 6. Jeff Wise, “6 Minutes of Terror: What Passengers and Crew Experienced

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.html. 17. Tkacik, “Crash Course.” 18. Robison, Flying Blind. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. John Cassidy, “How Boeing and the F.A.A. Created the 737 MAX Catastrophe,” The New Yorker, September 17, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-boeing-and-the-faa-created-the

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-737-max-catastrophe. 22. Travis, “How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer.” 23. “The GE-manufactured LEAP engines had a 40% larger diameter than the original 737s and weighed twice

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high angles of attack… And the lift they produce is well ahead of the wing’s center of lift, meaning the [engines] will cause the 737 Max at a high angle of attack to go to a higher angle of attack.” Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. As Travis puts it, “The

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major selling point of the 737 Max is that it is just a 737—any pilot who could fly a 737 could fly a 737 Max with no new training.” Ibid. 28. Tkacik, “Crash Course.” 29. Ibid. 30. Robison, Flying Blind; Tkacik

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, “Crash Course.” 31. Dominic Gates, “Why Boeing’s Emergency Directions May Have Failed to Save 737 MAX,” Seattle Times, April 8, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com

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/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-emergency-procedure-for-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/. 32. Tkacik, “Crash Course.” 33. Cassidy, “How Boeing and the F

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.A.A. Created the 737 MAX Catastrophe.” 34. Tkacik, “Crash Course.” 35. Clare Bushey, “Boeing investors could wait ‘years’ for dividend to return,” Financial Times, April 27, 2020, https://www.ft.

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-b826-2437a409db1f. 36. Robison, Flying Blind. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Cassidy, “How Boeing and the F.A.A. Created the 737 MAX Catastrophe.” 42. Michael Laris, “With Its Ties in Washington, Boeing Has Taken over More and More of the FAA’s Job,” Washington Post, March 24

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-and-more-of-the-faas-job/2019/03/24/6e5ef2c6-4be8-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html. 43. Ibid. 44. BBC News, “Boeing Admits Knowing of 737 Max Problem,” May 6, 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48174797. 45. US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Press Release: Boeing Charged

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Conspiracy and Agrees to Pay over $2.5 Billion,” January 7, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion. 46. Paul Constant, “It’s Time to End Corporate Welfare. Boeing Is Exhibit A for Why,” Insider,

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Rockwell Collins,” Collins Aerospace, November 26, 2018, https://www.collinsaerospace.com/news/news/2018/11/united-technologies-announces-intention-to-separate. 27. “Boeing Business Jet (737 MAX),” Collins Aerospace, accessed July 11, 2023, https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/business-aviation/platforms/boeing/boeing-business-jet

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-737-max. 28. “United Technologies and Raytheon Complete Merger of Equals Transaction,” RTX, April 3, 2020, accessed July 11, 2023, https://www.rtx.com/news/2020/04/

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“black swan” events, 50, 114 Blackwater, 104 Bodie, Matthew, 254 Boeing, 3–10, 86, 87, 96, 225 agreements with Southwest Airlines, 5, 10, 16 Boeing 737 MAX, 3–9, 17, 218–19 Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 4–5, 8 capitalism and, 16–17 corporate welfare and, 7–8, 29 MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation

Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions

by Temple Grandin, Ph.d. · 11 Oct 2022

thinkers on your team. We’ll see how disasters such as the devastating failure of the Fukushima power plant in Japan and the twin Boeing 737 MAX crashes that took the lives of hundreds of people might have been averted by someone with a visual skill set. While visual thinkers are not

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the retainer wall in a nuclear power plant. What follows are two detailed case studies of these catastrophes and what might have prevented them. Boeing 737 MAX You’ve probably heard that your chances of dying in a car accident are far greater than those of dying in a commercial airplane accident

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of plane, which Boeing had first released only a year and a half before the crash. At that point, I knew nothing about the Boeing 737 MAX planes except that Lion Air was buying them up for their fuel efficiency. The next day I gave a talk at Oakland University, near Detroit

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Times reported that several of the MAX’s test pilots did not know that the system relied on a single sensor. I also discovered that 737 MAXes did not include as a standard feature an angle-of-attack disagree alert, which immediately tells pilots when readings from the sensors don’t match

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airplane. Designing a totally new airframe would require more time than simply retrofitting the new wide engines onto an existing Boeing 737 airframe. The Boeing 737 MAX is a kludge design—a term for when parts from different planes are cobbled together. But for Boeing, using the same airframe meant they were

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field at almost seven hundred miles per hour. Investigators found wreckage buried as deep as thirty feet in the ground. After that tragedy, all Boeing 737 MAX planes were grounded. I’m sure the planes would never have stopped flying if they had used a two-sensor system, and if the pilots

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.” Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, RTCA Paper No. 274-20/PMC-2073, October 7, 2020. Baker, M., and D. Gates. “Lack of Redundancies on Boeing 737 MAX System Baffles Some Involved in Developing the Jet.” Seattle Times, March 26, 2019. Bard, N., et al. “The Hanabi Challenge: A New Frontier for AI

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-%E2%80%93-tale-two-leadership-styles. Catchpole, D. “The Forces behind Boeing’s Long Descent.” Fortune, January 20, 2020. https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-shareholder-first-culture/. Cho, A. “Critics Question Whether Novel Reactor Is ‘Walk-Away Safe.’ ” Science 369, no. 6506 (August 21, 2020): 888–89. https

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): 337–57. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.06.011. Gates, D., and D. Baker. “The Inside Story of MCAS: How Boeing’s 737 MAX System Gained Power and Lost Safeguards.” Seattle Times, June 22, 2019. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the-inside-story-of-mcas-how

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-boeings-737-max-system-gained-power-and-lost-safeguards/. Gibson, E. J., and R. D. Walk. “The ‘Visual Cliff.’ ” Scientific American 202, no. 4 (1960): 64–71. Glantz

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. “Elon Musk: Humanity Is a Kind of ‘Biological Boot Loader’ of AI.” Wired, September 1, 2019. Herkert, J., J. Borenstein, and K. Miller. “The Boeing 737 MAX Lessons for Engineering Ethics.” Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (2020): 2957–74. Hern, A. “Yes, Androids Do Dream of Electric Sheep.” Guardian, June 18, 2015

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/odds-of-dying/. Jensen, A. R. “Most Adults Know More Than 42,000 Words.” Frontiers, August 16, 2016. Johnston, P., and R. Harris. “The Boeing 737 MAX Saga: Lessons for Software Organizations.” Software Quality Profession 21, no. 3 (May 2019): 4–12. https://asq.org/quality-resources/articles/the-boeing

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-737-max-saga-lessons-for-software-organizations?id=489c93e1417945b8b9ecda7e3f937f5d. Kaiser, J. “Key Cancer Results Failed to Be Reproduced.” Science 374, no. 6573 (2021): 1311. Kalluri, P. “Don’

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Should Pay for the Mistakes on NASA’s Next Big Telescope?” Atlantic, July 27, 2018. Lahiri, T. “An Off-Duty Pilot Saved Lion Air’s 737 MAX from a Crash the Day before Its Fatal Flight.” Quartz, March 19, 2019. https://qz.com/1576597/off-duty-pilot-saved-lion-airs

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-737-max-the-day-before-its-fatal-flight/. Langewiesche, W. “System Crash—What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 MAX? A 21st Century Aviation Industry That Made Airplanes Astonishingly Easy to Fly, but Not Foolproof.” New York

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Management: Licensed Shared Access for 5G.” Telecommunications Policy 41, no. 5–6 (2017): 422–33. McCartney, S. “Inside the Effort to Fix the Troubled Boeing 737 MAX.” Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2019. McNutt, M. K., et al. “Applications of Science and Engineering to Quantify and Control the Deepwater Horizons Oil Spill

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://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/kk-np/safety/index-e.html. Schaper, D., and V. Romo. “Boeing Employees Mocked FAA in Internal Messages before 737 MAX Disasters.” Morning Edition, NPR, January 9, 2020. Shuto, N., and K. Fujima. “A Short History of Tsunami Research and Countermeasures in Japan.” Proceedings of the

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Royal Society A (2015). doi.10.1098/rsta.2014.0379. Tangel, A., A. Pasztor, and M. Maremont. “The Four-Second Catastrophe: How Boeing Doomed the 737 MAX.” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2019. Thompson, C. “The Miseducation of Artificial Intelligence.” Wired, December 2018. Travis, G. “How the Boeing

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737 MAX Disaster Looks to a Software Developer.” IEEE Spectrum, April 18, 2019. Tsuji, Y., et al. “Tsunami Heights along the Pacific Coast of Northern Honshu Recorded

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Horse (Sewell), 243–44, 274 Blazhenkova, Olesya, 38–39 blind people, 28–29, 83, 103–4, 171 Blume, Harvey, 159 Boden, Helen, 175–76 Boeing 737 MAX, and crashes, 6, 212–20, 227, 234, 270 Bouchard, Thomas, Jr., 169 Bradlee, Quinn, 175 brain (animal) compared with human’s, 253–56, 259, 263

The Disappearing Act

by Florence de Changy · 24 Dec 2020

known as such, even when years, sometimes decades, later the real causes were identified and the pilots were cleared. The most recent saga of the 737 MAX disasters has sadly proved no exception. The trend is surprisingly blatant, but it has its logic. Blaming the pilot exonerates the plane and engine manufacturers

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pilot Norbert Jacquet. Today, Jacquet continues to be a whistleblower on all civil aviation issues related to the ultra-automation of planes. To him, the 737 MAX double disasters are further cases in point.17 Last time I talked to him, he said he would rather not reveal where he was based

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was quickly established that both accidents resulted from the malfunction of a new automated control called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). All 387 Boeing 737 MAXs used by 59 airlines across the world at the time were grounded. 18 Dutch Safety Board, Crash of Malaysia Airlines light MH17, The Hague, October

Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us From Citizen Kings to Market Servants

by Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi · 14 May 2020 · 511pp · 132,682 words

’s best-selling airplane to suddenly become a safety and reputational hazard. A fatal flaw in Boeing’s anti-stall system caused two of its 737 MAX fleet to crash within five months of each other, killing 346 people on board. In the months following the crashes, “Boeing has admitted that it

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knew about a problem with its 737 MAX jets a year before the aircraft was involved in two fatal accidents, but took no action.”9 Why no action? “It was all triggered by

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company’s mandate about no extra training stopped us.12 At the time of sending this book to print, Boeing’s website proclaimed how the “737 MAX is the fastest-selling airplane in Boeing history with about 5,000 orders from more than 100 customers worldwide” and touted its reliability advantages over

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At its annual shareholder meeting in 2019, Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg rejected the argument that there was anything wrong with the design of the 737 MAX.14 In years to come, the ongoing investigations will likely expose the origins of these failures. But this was not only a failure of Boeing

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all US airplanes, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had been accused of being “too cozy” with America’s premier exporter, Boeing.15 After the two 737 MAX crashes, Senator Ted Cruz, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the FAA, told the media, “We want to know how Boeing, how private companies, are

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.stanford.edu/hearings/testimony/subprime-lending-and-securitization-and-enterprises, 92–93. 8.Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, xviii. 9.Theo Leggett, “Boeing Admits Knowing of 737 Max Problem,” BBC News, May 6, 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48174797. 10.Dominic Gates, interview, “Fatal Flaw,” 60 Minutes Australia, Nine Network

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, May 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QytfYyHmxtc. 11.“Fatal Flaw,” 60 Minutes Australia; Dominic Gates, “Long before First 737 Max Crash, Boeing Knew a Key Sensor Warning Light Wasn’t Working, but Told No One,” Seattle Times, May 5, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/business

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/boeing-aerospace/long-before-first-737-max-crash-boeing-knew-a-key-sensor-warning-light-wasnt-working-but-told-no-one/. 12.“Fatal Flaw,” 60 Minutes Australia. 13.Boeing, “About the Boeing

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737 MAX,” accessed May 10, 2019, https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/index.page; Boeing, “737 MAX: By Design,” accessed May 10, 2019, https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/by-design/#/max-reliability. 14.Dominic

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Gates, “Facing Sharp Questions, Boeing CEO Refuses to Admit Flaws in 737 Max Design,” Seattle Times, April 29, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/facing-sharp-questions-boeing-ceo-refuses-to-admit-flaws-in

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-737-max-design/. 15.Laurent Belsie, “‘Too Cozy.’ Boeing Crashes Raise Doubts over FAA Certification,” Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2019, https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2019/

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Watchdog Says FAA to Improve Air Safety Oversight Procedures by This Summer,” CNBC, March 27, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/faa-boeings-737-max-to-face-heat-in-congress.html. 17.Government Accountability Office, Aviation Safety: FAA Efforts Have Improved Safety, but Challenges Remain in Key Areas, statement of

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Transportation, April 16, 2013, https://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653801.pdf. 18.GAO, Aviation Safety, 3; Susan Webb Yackee and Simon F. Haeder, “Boeing 737 Max: The FAA Wanted a Safe Plane—but Didn’t Want to Hurt America’s Biggest Exporter Either,” The Conversation, March 22, 2019, https://theconversation.com

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/boeing-737-max-the-faa-wanted-a-safe-plane-but-didnt-want-to-hurt-americas-biggest-exporter-either-113892; Testimony of Daniel K. Elwell before the US Senate

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.FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 § 211(c). 22.Belsie, “‘Too Cozy’”; see also Andy Pasztor, Andrew Tangel, and Alison Sider, “FAA Didn’t Treat Suspect 737 MAX Flight-Control System as Critical Safety Risk: Conclusion Is Part of Internal Agency Review of Jetliner Certification Process,” Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2019, https

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://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-saw-737-max-flight-control-system-as-non-critical-safety-risk-11557831723. 23.12 U.S.C. § 5531(d) (2012) (defining an abusive act or practice as—“(1

Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism

by John Elkington · 6 Apr 2020 · 384pp · 93,754 words

, with your life. But what caught the world’s attention was that this crash was the second of its type involving Boeing’s commercially successful 737 Max 8 aircraft. I have never been afraid of flying, though I have certainly had frightening moments in flight. But reading the transcripts of the last

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the evidence increasingly pointed to systemic defects in the aircraft’s anti-stall software. This was designed to point the plane downward to counterbalance the 737 Max 8’s heavy, forward-mounted engines.10 Confounding the expectations of the designers, of the crew of the doomed flights, and of the regulators whose

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of Boeing gave their then-chief executive Dennis Muilenberg a 27% pay raise for 2018 for his success in speeding sales of the profoundly flawed 737 Max 8.14 Similarly, we are generously rewarding our elites, or allowing them to reward themselves, for turning our civilization into a slow-moving, but now

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/news/resources/idt-sh/boeing_two_deadly_crashes. 10.Henry Grabar, “The Crash of the Boeing 737 Max Is a Warning to Drivers, Too,” Slate, March 12, 2019. See also: https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/boeing-737-max-crashes-automation-self-driving-cars-surprise.html. 11.John Gapper, “Boeing’s Hubris Blinded It

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Schumpeter, Joseph, 203 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 77–78 science, 83–84, 121–123, 183–184, 217–218 Scientific American (magazine), 65, 98–99 Seba, Tony, 241 737 Max 8 aircraft, Boeing, 194–197 Shanghai, China, 108–109 shared natural resources, 204 shared value, 59–60, 149f shareholder primacy, 14, 205 shareholder value, 149f

Risk: A User's Guide

by Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico · 4 Oct 2021 · 489pp · 106,008 words

important for a highway safety authority. But resist the temptation to assess only factors that feel relevant—as Boeing did during the crashes of the 737 MAX. Pairing your quantitative and qualitative responses will give you a robust understanding of the strength of your organization’s Risk Immune System. Fine-Tuning the

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10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed only six minutes after takeoff. Both planes were Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. Post-crash analysis placed great focus on the newly installed automated control system of the 737 MAX—when it malfunctioned, the planes were forced into irrecoverable nosedives. Subsequent examination found that the pilots could

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Resources of the European Combatants”; Royde-Smith, “The Invasion of Low Countries and France.” newly installed automated control system: Michael Laris, “Changes to Flawed Boeing 737 Max Were Kept from Pilots, DeFazio Says,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2019, https://washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/changes-to-flawed-boeing

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-737-max-were-kept-from-pilots-defazio-says/2019/06/19/553522f0-92bc-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a_story.html. pilots could have responded: Jack Nicas, James Glanz, and

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Times, March 25, 2019, https://nytimes.com/2019/03/25/business/boeing-simulation-error.html. But the updated control system: Laris, “Changes to Flawed Boeing 737 Max Were Kept from Pilots.” Chapter 17: Solutions most volatile expense: United, Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2017, 14, https://ir

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, 139, 140, 141–42, 143, 144–47, 200–201, 240 Bloody Sunday, 99 boards of directors, 113–15, 118–20, 236, 255, 265, 282 Boeing 737 MAX, 233–34 Boston, xxii, 205–6, 207, 208–9, 210, 211–18 Boston Hope field hospital, 215 Boston Marriott Long Wharf Hotel, 208 Boston Marathon

A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back

by Bruce Schneier · 7 Feb 2023 · 306pp · 82,909 words

and passenger agree to “go karura,” which means that the passenger cancels the ride and pays the driver the entire amount in cash. The Boeing 737 MAX debacle provides a particularly high-profile example of the regulatory negligence that results from overly close relationships between regulators and regulated industries. In this case

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, FAA regulators applied insufficient scrutiny to the 737 MAX’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which the company had modified. As a result of this failure of oversight, two

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737 MAX airplanes crashed in Indonesia (2018) and Ethiopia (2019), killing 346 people. Let’s be explicit about the hack here. Regulatory agencies are supposed to be

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side: Natalie Kitroeff, David Gelles, and Jack Nicas (27 Jun 2019), “The roots of Boeing’s 737 Max crisis: A regulator relaxes its oversight,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/business/boeing-737-max-faa.html. 117The FAA even waived: Gary Coglianese, Gabriel Scheffler, and Daniel E. Walters (30 Oct

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, David, 42 Biden, Joseph, 129, 130 Big Lie technique, 189 biological systems, 19–20 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 169 Black Codes, 162–63 Boeing 737 MAX, 116–17 Bongo, Ali, 193 border closures, 126 Borodin, Andrey, 87 bots, 188, 210, 220, 221–22, 225–26, 274n Boxie, 218 brands, 194 Breaking