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

by Peter Robison

“With its unique systems design, the 737 operates in some scenarios at reduced safety margins compared to modern aircraft,” as one Boeing employee, less eager to get the plane back up in the air, wrote in his own comments to the FAA. That person was Curtis Ewbank, the young engineer who had tried to get his bosses to listen to his concerns about the MAX’s design, quit in frustration, and eventually rejoined Boeing. His comments painstakingly laid out the scenarios where the plane is lacking. The rudder cables remain vulnerable to engine shrapnel, the issue that thirteen FAA specialists wanted fixed before they were overridden by managers. In a jam of the elevator system, the crew is expected to “literally learn on the fly,” while reading notes from the checklist—something pilots don’t train for in a simulator, he said. Some of the cockpit alerts, he added, leave the crew to interpret and deal with erroneous information instead of removing it automatically as in a more modern design; the MAX remains the only large commercial airliner without an electronic checklist to guide pilots.