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

by Peter Robison

Within just a month of the plane’s grounding, Boeing had to sell $3.5 billion in bonds and draw on a $1.5 billion line of credit from its banks to raise money, a sign of how close to the edge it operated, and how little it had set aside for such rainy days. So much cash had been shoveled back to shareholders—not to mention Boeing’s board members and executives—that there was little left when MAX deliveries stopped and revenue dried up. Under Greg Smith, the chief financial officer, Boeing had even started pulling GE-like financial maneuvers to beat Wall Street’s quarterly targets for cash, agreeing with some customers to pull forward anticipated payments for future deliveries in exchange for later concessions. By one analyst’s measure, these “Houdini moments” had accelerated as much as $1.5 billion of payments in a single year.