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

by Peter Robison

Many people in the industry—and especially at Boeing—still believe the twenty-month grounding was an overreaction, Boeing the fall guy for lousy overseas pilots and sanctimonious whistleblowers. One of the most pointed comments to the final Airworthiness Directive published by the FAA came from an American Airlines pilot: “Interesting that none of the three major airlines had any problems with MCAS. Let’s get her back in the AIR!” For airlines confronting their own existential crisis after the pandemic, the MAX, for all its infamy, is a moneymaker. Those giant engines—no longer soda cans, now more resembling Big Gulps—save 15 percent on fuel costs for every flight. And instead of tiny winglets raked at the tips of the wings, as on the earlier 737 Next Generation, there were “split scimitars” in each direction, sluicing every last percentage point of efficiency from the airflow. American had another reason to be the first in the United States to fly the MAX in the last days of 2020, one that it hadn’t stated publicly: the terms of its bank financing were tied to the plane’s use on paid routes that year. Renegotiating them would have been more costly than being first to put the MAX back in the skies and taking whatever public-relations flak came with it. In the end there was little of that, with cost-sensitive fliers seeing few hassle-free ways to avoid the MAX. That first week, even during the pandemic, the flights were more than 90 percent full. People reflexively trusted ...