Why The Boeing 737 Max Has Been Such A Mess

CNBC
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Published 2024-04-03
Five years ago, 346 people were killed in two plane crashes that happened five months apart, in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Both were Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. Then, this past January, Boeing came inches from yet another catastrophe as a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 plane at 16,000 feet shortly after taking off from Portland, Oregon. Preliminary reports said the door panel that flew off the Max 9 appeared to be missing four key bolts.

The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines incident. And the Federal Aviation Administration said it found dozens of problems after auditing Boeing’s manufacturing process.

While Boeing and the FAA have responded more aggressively to the Max 9 issue, the FAA production audit found multiple instances where both Boeing and fuselage maker Spirit Aerosystems allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control problems.

Boeing announced major management changes including CEO Dave Calhoun, who was brought in to get the company out of the max crisis in 2019, just announced he’ll be stepping down at the end of 2024.

CNBC explores how the 737 Max crisis unfolded and what the future holds for Boeing’s best selling jet.

Chapters:
2:22 Evolution of the Boeing 737
5:42 Missing bolts
9:36 A merger and a shift
11:09 What’s next?

Produced, Shot and Edited by: Erin Black
Supervising Producer: Jeniece Pettitt
Animations: Jason Reginato
Editorial Support: Leslie Josephs
Additional Production: Katie Tarasov

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Why The Boeing 737 Max Has Been Such A Mess
All Comments (21)
  • @dabiri69
    So basically they lost millions trying to save pennies
  • @BluishHuntress
    This is what happens when you value the opinions of MBAs over engineers.
  • @MGZetta
    Why the ceo still talking about pleasing the board? Try pleasing your engineers and customers. Lmao.
  • @Anon1mous
    What happened? We all know exactly what happened. GREED.
  • @1-9-MIX
    They got whistleblower killed!
  • @michaelbruce5415
    There is a great line from the miniseries "Chernobyl" - “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth, Sooner or later that debt is paid”.
  • @ssj4gogeta87
    Boeing management should have been criminaly prosecuted for the max crashes. Their decisions and short cuts murdred 346 people how they just got away with fines is a great injustice.
  • @Smart-Towel-RG-400
    Its sickening that nobody at Boeing was held criminally libel for the max deaths
  • @longbeach225
    If America don't hold Boeing accountable then rest if the world will by not buying anymore Boeing planes. It will sink America reputation.
  • @Mabeylater293
    Airbus is an ENGINEERING company ran by an ENGINEER. Boeing is an ENGINEERING company ran by a BEAN COUNTER
  • @erbol0011
    Most strange thing is that problems with quality leads to decrease in stock price which directly harms investors and customers. So penny savings are just stupid in such situations
  • @who2u333
    What happened is that in the late '90's the board decided that the company didn't need to be a manufacturing company, it needed to be a profit generation company. It moved HQ away from Seattle, they removed engineers for management positions and replaced them with 'financial' people, they spun off parts of the manufacturing (Spirit is an example), and pushed everyone for profit-driven results as opposed to quality product results. Now we see people pointing these things out, when they were pointed out back when they happened. The financial leadership hollowed out a storied manufacturing company, and have finally found out that there is a limit to how far you can run a company for pure profit. The current CEO was not necessarily the issue, just like the previous one was not the issue. They only do what the board tells them.
  • @camilojimenez623
    Careful guys, we all know what happens to people that talk bad about Boeing.
  • @rcmaniac10
    stock bros always mess everything up. when companies primary goal is to please investors this happens.