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

by Peter Robison

Not many gave a thought to the machines parked beside the jetways, many of them Boeing 737s, the stub-nosed workhorses of airline fleets since the 1970s. Commercial aircraft are considered the world’s premier expression of manufacturing excellence, designed by tens of thousands of people around the world who put their hands on them—at first figuratively, on the computer screens of engineers, and then literally when machinists climb underneath them to hand-crank stubborn fasteners to the desired torque. Before the planes leave Boeing’s factory near Seattle, airlines send their own representatives to inspect every inch and reject the machines if they find, say, a loose bin or a fray in the forty miles of wiring (or, as sometimes happens, a forgotten wrench or gum wrapper). The people gathered around Gate B5 that morning for Lion Air Flight 610 were about to board the newest and most advanced of more than ten thousand 737s Boeing had manufactured. It was called the 737 MAX 8. A far cry from the original 737, which had two tiny cigar-shaped engines tucked under its wings, this one had two massive turbofans. Almost six feet in diameter, they were so big they had to be mounted in front of the wings instead of beneath them, and the average person could stand inside the cowlings. The engines generated twenty-eight thousand pounds of thrust—double that of the first 737 models—while drastically lowering fuel consumption. The new jetliner was economical enough that Lion Air could cha...