The Boeing 737 passenger jet crashing off Indonesia.
This was one of the darkest days in Boeing’s history.
189 people were killed 13 minutes after Lion Air Flight 610
took off from Jakarta.
Just six months later, a second crash occurred
six minutes after Ethiopian Airlines 302
took off from Addis Ababa,
killing all 157 passengers.
Everyone was trying to call him on his cell phone,
and there was no answer.
Both flights had been operating the same plane,
the new Boeing 737 MAX jet,
built to rival Airbus’ A320neo.
Countries around the world rushed to ground the aircraft.
President Trump tonight and his emergency order
grounding all Boeing 737 MAX 8s and 9s here in the US.
The Federal Aviation Administration was one of the last to do so.
We need to know if Boeing and the FAA
rushed to certify the MAX.
As questions began swirling about what had caused the crash,
whistleblowers began coming forward.
When I mentioned that I’ve seen operations in the military
shut down for lesser safety concerns,
I will never forget his response, which was,
“The military isn’t a profit-making organization.”
A whistleblower at Boeing also revealed to
that defective parts were being used in new aircraft.
Three of my inspectors jumped up and said, “No, you cannot do that.
That’s a serious process violation.”
And he basically told them the same thing,
“Don’t worry about it.”
An investigation led by
the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
would reveal the Federal Aviation Administration
had delegated many of their safety checks to Boeing
as the manufacturer raced against Airbus to get the aircraft certified.
That rush led to a major design oversight and to both crashes.
But this is not the first time the FAA has been called out.
Joseph Monfort,
a former army helicopter pilot and FAA employee since 2009,
now says he was prevented from inspecting the aircraft
prior to the crash.
The inspector general says the FAA and Southwest
are not following federal guidelines,
putting more than 17 million people at risk.
Most recently, an engine burst into flames on a Boeing 777.
Similar incidents have occurred over the last three years.
In 2018, a cracked fan blade on another United 777
caused the engine to come apart.
Last December, it happened on a Japan Airlines 777.
Three years ago, a passenger on a Southwest 737 was killed.
Grounded no more,
the Boeing 737 MAX set to take flight in the US again tomorrow.
Now, following a 20-month review process,
the MAX jet has been certified to take to the skies once more.
The chief of the FAA, Steve Dickson, took to the cockpit himself
in a bid to boost confidence in the aircraft.
I completed a number of test profiles today
to examine the functionality of the aircraft.
And, you know, I liked what I saw.
But with the investigation into the crashes
revealing instances of the FAA putting profits before safety
and Boeing being fined $2.5 billion
for fraud and conspiracy in relation to the crashes,
many are questioning if the FAA and the Boeing MAX jet
can be trusted again.
It takes an average of eight to 14 years to design, build, test,
and certify an aircraft.
The 737 MAX is a new version of the 737,
a plane that first hit the airways in the 1960s,
and is, to date, the most successful aircraft in history,
accounting for more than half of
the roughly 20,000 aircraft ever sold by Boeing,
contributing trillions of dollars to the US and global economy.
And man steps across the threshold into a bright new age.
The design upgrade on the 737 MAX
made it 12 percent more fuel efficient than the Airbus neo.
Airbus came out with
a new generation of their very successful A320 aircraft.
So Boeing made the decision
to put off the plans for the new airliner
and to modify the 737.
A lot of people criticize Boeing on the MAX
because it was about the sixth major stretch, if you will,
or modification of that airframe.
Everything was driven to keep costs down,
increase the number of passengers, improve fuel efficiencies.
The Boeing-Airbus rivalry is over 100 years in the making.
Our product strategy is to have the most capable airplane
in every segment of the commercial airplane market.
Boeing quickly became the leading provider for
commercial and military aircraft in the US and around the world.
Fifty years later, a European rival was born in France.
Airbus grew fast and became a major contender.
They remained close competitors
until Boeing’s sales took a dive in 2019 following the crashes
and the grounding of the MAX jet around the world.
Today was about telling them we’re sorry,
wanting to share with them our commitment to safety.
Several investigations pointed to MCAS as the culprit,
a piece of software meant to stop the plane’s nose from pitching upwards
and prevent the aircraft from stalling.
However, Boeing failed to alert the FAA about this important update
and the additional costly pilot training it would require.
The plane stalled and hurtled to the ground.
Boeing decided that the best way to compete
was going to be continuing on with the Boeing 737 line.
They had a lot of customers that would like that.
During MCAS activation.
New MCAS computer system was mentioned only once.
The MCAS could have activated
because of a failure of the angle of attack.
They had to stick these larger fan jets
underneath the wing of this 737,
which is pretty low to the ground to start with.
So what Boeing said is,
“Aha! We can come up with a piece of software,
and it will automatically shove the nose down
if the pilots allow the nose to get too high.
Well, for reasons that are still not clear,
they didn't fully explain this to their customers, the airlines,
and they didn’t fully brief the pilots
who would be flying the new MAXs
on this new piece of automation.
But MCAS is only a symptom of a greater problem.
The Joint Authorities Technical Review
was an effort started by the Federal Aviation
after the two tragic crashes of the 737 MAX.
The Joint Technical Review,
an independent body that was formed to scrutinize
how a plane that was so meticulously constructed, failed.
One glaring issue has been
the inability of the FAA and its 40,000 plus employees
to keep up with high-tech advancements
that were being made at Boeing.
Time and money play a role in this.
But time and money have always played a role
in the design of airplanes.
My question is, what’s new?
And what’s changed is the increasing complexity
and interconnectedness of aviation systems.
This new technology is so complicated that
even within a manufacturer, you only have a few people
that are going to understand a particular system.
If you try to bring in a person from the outside to figure it out,
it’s just overwhelming.
What happened in this situation of the 787 and the 737 MAX,
was that the private industry, particularly Boeing in this case,
felt that the certification process was too onerous and too slow
for them to be competitive in the market
that was developing with Airbus.
Technology is only half the story.
Boeing has successfully lobbied the FAA
to take on most of its own oversight—and won.
Large corporations in the United States
exert extreme amount of power on the political system.
Boeing is a case in point
where they were increasingly given more autonomy and self-regulation.
So far, the cost of grounding the MAX has reached $20.7 billion.
As of now, Boeing is one of the biggest lobbying machines
in Washington,
coming in at tenth after major spenders like Big Pharma,
with $12.6 million spent to shape government policy in 2020 alone.
And it’s no wonder.
The US government spends billions
purchasing aircrafts from Boeing each year,
one of the largest companies in America,
with over 140,000 employees.
Money talks, OK?
And Boeing had a lot of money, and they can influence politicians.
And, of course, it came back to bite them
and ultimately cost billions of dollars to recover.
So Boeing was able to lobby for an increased amount of delegation
so that their own employees would act as inspectors.
Both of these accidents were entirely preventable.
We cannot fathom the pain experienced by the families
of those 346 human beings who were lost.
He was 38, he was about to turn 39,
and he was about to get married four months later.
How am I supposed to spend the next 40 years of my life without him?
The CEO of Boeing
had begged the president not to ground the 737,
and we knew there was real interference there,
and we were the last to act.
That is what really shook our credibility around the world
and put all of us in jeopardy.
All of those planes are grounded,
effective immediately.
I think it’s the right call.
To err on the side of safety is what people have been calling for
-But what, what... -for days now.
But Boeing and the FAA’s relationship does not stop there.
With only a finite amount of qualified engineers,
people that have worked at Boeing will often work at the FAA
and vice versa,
creating a revolving door that may be compromising oversight.
The problem with the United States government
is the fact that they can’t pay for the talent that they get.
Private industry pays substantially more.
So trying to attract
the best and the brightest into these positions
is going to take some work on the part of the FAA.
Our specialists have scrutinized the A380′s design,
right down to the smallest component.
The European Aviation Safety Agency, the FAA’s European counterpart,
has also recently recertified the MAX for flight.
On their website, they wrote,
“This assessment was carried out in full independence of Boeing
or the Federal Aviation Administration
and without any economic or political pressure.”
This aircraft now has been scrutinized
in every which way but straight,
and now it’s probably the safest airplane flying out there.
And that’s the catch-22 in this whole certification battle, if you will,
is you've got to have the resources, both people and money,
so that you can have your independent people
in there looking at the process
and not getting in the way of the process,
but just observing, studying, and understanding it.
A top safety expert at the FAA
has also recently spoken out against the recertification of the MAX jet,
saying additional system upgrades were still needed.
In this race to the top, Boeing’s financial drive
and the successful removal of government oversight
have left families scarred for life.
Congress has recently passed a bill that will be sent to the Senate
asking to reform the FAA with the express intent
of strengthening its certification process.
We really need to see this is passed through Congress
and given as a priority to Secretary Buttigieg
and Administrator Dixon.
We owe that to the families of the 346 lives lost
and the way that the entire world views US aviation.
I think would be a really nice thing to see the FAA
hire people from outside the United States,
people that were trained at other manufacturers and different cultures
because they would have a different perspective.
Boeing, who built a plane and was blinded by company profits,
put the lives of 346 people on the line.
And amongst this group were people who enlightened the world.
Some were on their way to
the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
There were people like that. There were people like that.
When will mankind have the courage
to look itself in the mirror and say, “It can’t work like this”?