Netflix is currently broadcasting a stunning documentary called Freefall: The Boeing Affair. Testimonies, confessions, archives, investigations and analyzes make up this shocking portrait of a sordid story that took place to satisfy this sole objective: cash. Summary.
A quick reminder: the Boeing 737 MAX case is first and foremost about two plane crashes. The first: Lion Air Flight 610, Jakarta, Indonesia, October 29, 2018. Death toll: 189. The second: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, Addis Abeda, Ethiopia, March 10, 2019 Number of dead: 157.
Two deadly crashes that turn out to be the tip of a scandalous iceberg.
It all started so well...
The documentary opens the curtains on the years before: "There's an old saying in aviation: if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going!" Because Boeing has had an incredible reputation in the industry. »
It is also noted that at the beginning of 2018, “we were experiencing the safest period in the history of commercial aviation. There had been no major passenger plane crashes anywhere in the world the previous year. »
And the first crash.
The next day, Boeing immediately pointed the finger at the country (Indonesia), the airline (Lion Air) and especially the pilots: "Boeing said that they had been incompetent, and that an American pilot would not would never be in this kind of situation. »
Then the black boxes of the aircraft revealed a problem with probes, and especially what had happened in the cockpit just before the crash: “the pilots fought against the machine”.
Two weeks after the crash, investigators began asking questions about the design of the 737 MAX and how it operated. And this is where the puzzle began to take shape.
When questioning Boeing on how, on its own, a probe could have triggered such behavior of the aircraft (the aircraft corrected its angle of flight on its own, until it pitched down, without considering the attempts by the pilots to recover, then plunge headfirst into the water), the American manufacturer ended up declaring that "the activation of MCAS was wrong".
Did you say “MCAS”?
“No one knew what MCAS was, not even the pilots! reveals the people interviewed in this documentary.
In simple terms, MCAS is software that triggers the rectification of the angle of the aircraft when a so-called angle of attack sensor informs it that the angle is not good.
In other words, a mega important gizmo, which plays an even more mega important role, but which the pilots did not know existed!
Why the hell did the pilots know nothing about it? Boeing ended up admitting: “We never gave pilots any information on MCAS, they were never trained on MCAS, because we didn’t want to flood them with information”….!
Then the escalation:
1-hearing such a claim, pilots go crazy
2-Boeing visits the pilots’ unions – along with its lobbyists – and announces “we didn’t want to overload the pilots with useless information”…!
3-second crash of a Boeing 737 MAX, on March 10, 2019, just five months after the first crash. The plane slammed into the ground at more than 800 km/h.
And panic is setting in in aviation. Translation: pilots no longer want to fly the 737 MAX, China announces that it is grounding all 737 MAX (a brand new plane, the best-selling in Boeing's history), several other countries are following suit (Australia , New Zealand, France, Italy, the Netherlands…).
What does Boeing do? “The company persists in not recognizing that something is wrong. And the CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, goes with this statement: safety is our priority! »
The investigation surrounding this second crash reveals that the unknown gadget of the pilots, the MCAS, is indeed in question.
The Turning Wind
A 20-year Wall Street Journal aviation journalist, Andy Pasztor says, “Boeing eventually acknowledged that MCAS had misfires, but maintained that the Ethiopian Airlines crew members had failed. didn't do exactly what they were supposed to do. »
But now the black boxes of the second plane reveal that "this time, the pilots followed Boeing's instructions when the MCAS kicked in" (after the first crash, Boeing was ordered to disclose the information surrounding MCAS to pilots).
Then we find out that “Boeing lobbyists had hired Washington firms to spread the argument that foreign pilots were to blame,” we are told.
Totally freak out!
At this point in the documentary, viewers who didn't follow the headlines because they lived in the bush in 2019 are in freakout mode. He asks himself a thousand questions: what is the idea? What is this bizarre behavior of a company of such greatness, power and notoriety?
The thaw is coming.
We are taken back to 1996, the year of the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. The stated objective: to remain competitive. “Everything started to fall apart with this merger,” says aviation analyst Michael Goldfarb.
The new CEO of Boeing, Harry Stonecipher, arrives with his beautiful mentality, that the most important thing for a company is to create value on Wall Street. “We are here to make money” repeats the new CEO.
“Then he accelerated the transformation of Boeing into a finance-oriented company,” says Jon Ostrower, editor-in-chief of The Air Current.
Translation: the company culture is changing from “everyone works together for safety” to “everyone works together for share value”. "All planes now had to be manufactured at low cost," says Rick Ludtke, an engineer at Boeing from 1996 to 2017.
What follows is part of a scenario where cash is king: reduction in the number of workers in all sectors of the company, increase in the number of tasks for those who remain, but with fewer means. Big bug here: among the laid off employees, quality and safety controllers…
And a splendid strategy is put in place: Boeing moves its headquarters from Seattle to Detroit. Objective: to distance managers from engineers to better make financial decisions.
"We already knew that this change in corporate culture was going to affect the company in ways that were impossible to imagine," says Rick Ludtke.
Boeing is stung
At the same time, in the early 2000s, Airbus' order book approached the level of Boeing's. And exceeds it in 2003. Boeing is stung. Translation: accelerating time to market must be the priority.
“After the merger and the rise of Airbus, Boeing stopped listening to its employees,” says Barrett Barnett, quality manager at Boeing from 1985 to 2017.
"Boeing whistleblowers said anyone who reported a problem at the South Carolina plant was either fired, fired, or transferred," says Michael Goldfarb.
“My salary was reduced because I complained about the quality of the writing. They told me that they absolutely did not want the issues to be listed in order to maintain a denial of guilt. They didn't want any proof, ”testifies Barrett Barnett again.
And panic sets in at Boeing
In 2010, Airbus launched the A320 NEO, a very fuel-efficient model. “The NEO caused panic at Boeing, explains Michael Goldfarb, because they did not have an aircraft capable of competing with the NEO. »
“So Boeing imagines a new plane, but its price turns out to be too high. They therefore decided to equip the existing 737 model with more fuel-efficient engines,” adds journalist Andy Pasztor.
And that’s where the 737 MAX comes in
Andy Pasztor continues: “The advantage of a derivative model (which is the 737 MAX) is that it takes less time to obtain approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The other advantage is that a derivative model does not require additional training for pilots. »
“Pilot training is a significant cost to airlines,” adds Rick Ludtke.
We're starting to loop...
And Boeing therefore guarantees to airlines that if they buy their 737 MAX, their pilots will not need training to fly this plane.
The order book is exploding! (we are still before the second crash)
But here it is...
Investigations in the aftermath of the second crash revealed that Boeing deliberately glossed over the introduction of MCAS, a brand new feature that was not present on the older 737 model, "in order to prevent the FAA requires pilot training”.
To save cash.
“Boeing figured it had to pretend it was the same 737 model so it wouldn’t affect pilot certification, to avoid training. Boeing deliberately concealed the existence of MCAS from anyone outside of Boeing,” said Peter De Fazio, congressional representative and chairman of the Boeing Investigation Committee.
“There was a culture of intentional concealment at Boeing,” adds Richard Reed, engineer at the FAA from 2007 to 2017.
The investigation revealed that Lion Air had asked Boeing if it would not be better to provide MCAS training to pilots, and Boeing had then replied: "Absolutely not! ".
“Boeing denied pilots access to a simulator and called Lion Air’s willingness to provide training to its pilots ‘stupid’. Boeing even talked about manipulating controllers around the world into adopting the standard that no simulator training was required,” adds Peter De Fazio.
The day after this major investigation, the former CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, was asked to resign by the Board. He received US$62 million in stock and… compensation.
