Narrator: The Boeing 737 Max
was the fastest-selling airliner in Boeing history,
selling more than 5,000 aircraft over the past few years.
But in April and May, Boeing sold zero.
The 737 Max was big, fuel-efficient,
and more affordable than other planes.
It was a popular plane until a particular sensor
became a problem, which eventually led
to two fatal crashes in five months,
killing everyone on both flights: 346 people total.
Since then, there has been a worldwide grounding
of the 737 Max, lawsuits from pilots
and from families affected by the crashes,
and congressional hearings,
and the US Department of Justice
has begun a criminal investigation.
Boeing took a long time to address the issues,
which only seems to have made things worse.
With modifications to the plane's software underway
and hopes that it will fly again soon,
the question remains:
Can Boeing bounce back?
This wasn't the first time Boeing
had a problem with their designs.
In the 1960s, the Boeing 727 had issues with its new wings.
In the 1990s, the Boeing 737 had issues with its rudder.
And in 2013, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner
had issues with its battery catching on fire.
Boeing has a history of introducing new designs
that lack advice from outside experts to ensure safety.
And this sensor problem with the 737 Max was no different.
Christine Negroni: How the Boeing 737 Maxes crashed,
not one but two occasions,
is the result of complicated decisions
that were made early on in the process
when they were trying to decide what they were going to do
with their next narrow-body aircraft
in a competitive market with Airbus.
And they decided, rather than build a new plane,
they would go back and tinker with an old plane.
Narrator: Boeing took the 737 model from the 1960s
and added larger engines to create the 737 Max.
This new design caused the nose of the plane to point up.
Boeing added the Maneuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System, also known as MCAS,
to essentially keep the nose from pointing up.
Negroni: And then, of course, the next problem
was that they didn't tell the pilots or even the airline
that this solution existed on the aircraft.
What would happen when the MCAS triggered
is that the airplane would not give control
back to the pilots.
It would continue to put the airplane
in a nose-down position.
And even when the pilots recognized
that maybe there was a problem with this system
and tried to turn it off, the forces on the tail
were so great that they were unable
to physically override the nose-down.
Narrator: Pilots also lacked
proper training with the MCAS.
They were trained on an iPad instead of a simulator
to cut costs and shorten training time.
And the two planes that crashed
didn't have the optional angle-of-attack safety feature
that could have alerted pilots
if the plane was pointing in the wrong direction,
and that Boeing charged extra for.
Sinéad Baker: So this increased public mistrust of Boeing
is probably a result of both the two fatal crashes,
but also how Boeing responded to them.
The public is definitely skeptical of Boeing
after these two crashes.
A recent poll found that 41% of Americans
wouldn't fly on the 737 Max until it was back in service
for six months and there were no incidents.
It took Boeing almost a month to issue an apology,
to say, "I'm sorry for the first time."
And, in the meantime, the US was slow to ground the planes
compared to other countries, which maybe made people feel
like the US and its safety regulators
couldn't be fully trusted.
Narrator: Experts say that this was a mistake,
that it made Boeing look insincere,
and that it prioritized profit over people.
Irv Schenkler: Had they opened up, had the CEO
or another senior executive
spoken to this more general sense of concern,
indicating that the company is doing everything it can
as soon as it can to find out more and will report back,
that could have at least lessened the sense
that the company was being evasive.
Narrator: Boeing's slow response has cost them.
The company wasn't able to sell any 737 Maxes
for three months after they were grounded in March.
Baker: Boeing is doing a lot of things at the moment
in an attempt to win back people's trust.
They've been apologizing more frequently,
they've been offering to fly their CEO first on the plane
in a bid to prove that it's safe,
and they've also been organizing more sales of the plane
to prove just how confident
the industry still is in the jet.
Narrator: During the 2019 Paris Air Show,
Boeing announced its first buyer
since the 737 Max grounding.
International Airlines Group,
the parent company of British Airways and other airlines,
placed an order for 200 737 Max planes.
While the deal would normally carry a list price
of $24 billion, it was likely discounted
because of Boeing's current woes.
Though the planes won't start to be delivered until 2023,
the sale gives the company a much-needed vote of confidence.
Schenkler: You can't manage a crisis, but you can definitely
manage how you communicate about it.
They need to be able to get affirmation
from individuals and groups who are credible
and who were perhaps skeptical and who could indicate
that the company is righting its wrongs,
and that would go, I think, a long way
towards ultimately regaining a degree of trust.
But, again, it's a slow process.
Narrator: Boeing may have gained support
from certain airlines.
But the company also needs to show pilots,
flight attendants, regulators, and the general public
that it cares, through words and actions,
that its planes are safe to fly
and that the company can be trusted.
Negroni: Boeing knows that the 737 Max cannot survive
another event with this MCAS system.
So nobody wants the fix to work more than Boeing.
We can rest assured that its desire is there.
Is it capable of understanding all the potential faults,
all the potential pathways, and all of the required remedies
and instituting them is the next question.
Narrator: One thing Boeing should definitely do?
Show it is listening to experts
and voices from outside the company.
Negroni: I think Boeing needs to be opened to the media.
I think Boeing needs to stop shutting out reporters
and stop closing down and obstacating
when legitimate questions are raised,
because I don't think it does them any good.
Narrator: The crisis has already been pretty expensive
for the company, and it's likely to cost them even more.
Baker: In the first quarter of the year, it lost $1 billion.
And airlines around the world
now want compensation from Boeing, even those who say
that they still completely trust Boeing and the plane.
It's also facing lawsuits from families around the world,
some for hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, chances are, this whole thing
is going to cost Boeing billions.
Narrator: There's no telling when the 737 Max
will be cleared to fly again.
Recent reports indicate that
the software fix may not even work
and that the plane might require a hardware fix,
which would be even more expensive
and take even more time.
But experts do believe that Boeing
has a chance to recover from this.
The company has to be much more open
about what it is doing, while also making sure
that there are no more issues with its planes.
Negroni: I think it's probably 60/40 that Boeing
commercial aircraft will recover from this.
But I definitely think that they've been shaken up
enough to know they have to change their ways.
Narrator: What do you think?
Would you fly on a 737 Max
when airlines start using them again?
Let us know in the comments.