Apparently the fundamental problem, is that it isn’t Boeing, except on paper, anymore:
It’s McDonnell Douglas.
The engineering-culture of Boeing, was displaced when they merged,
& McDonnell Douglas’s beancounter-culture did a “reverse takover”
( same as the confederates have now done a reverse-takeover of the US of A, & people are still pretending it’s the US of A, instead of accepting that it’s just the confederates ruling the “legal” US of A, but the “United States of America” is now functionally-gone, & that transformation’s still accelerating, less-than 1/4 of the way through Trump’s converting it into his possession. )
…so therefore “Boeing” is a dishonest/phony label on the company, now.
It’s the McDonnell Douglas Dreamliner. The McDonnell Douglas 737-Max, etc.
Once the honest label gets put on it, then our unconscious-mind stops holding-onto contradicting-the-evidence assumptions/beliefs/habits!
Boeing didn’t work the way McDonnell Douglas does.
& from what I’ve read, the “new CEO” is every bit as much anti-engineering-culture/pro-beancounter-culture as the guy he replaced, so therefore there is ZERO probability that anything fundamentally/really is going to change in that company.
Bottom-line-centrism ISN’T engineering-excellence-centrism!
They are different motivations.
They are different orientations.
They are different religions.
The longer people keep pretending that Boeing-culture’s still existing in that company, the more people are going to die before we “wrap our heads around” the actual-facts.
sigh
This proves that companies can’t be trusted to say what they are, but that regulators have to both periodically AND event-driven TEST what their culture is,
in order to discover when a company has kept the same name, but it isn’t the same company … and when that is discovered-to-be-the-case, then the regulators have to restart all certifications, because the “established relationship” was eliminated by the company which did a culture-change, while dishonestly keeping the old brand-name.
Why the hell does machiavellianism have to make EVERY-fscking-thing be too-damn-malevolent??
Humbug.
_ /\ _
Just going to recommend the 2022 documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing for anyone who’s unfamiliar. It gives you all of this context, the Boeing before vs. after the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas. Basically it’s no longer the same Boeing that put safety above all. They sold out.
Curious if this is the same book that John Oliver referenced in his respective episode? That was great.
Ah this is only a documentary film. I didn’t watch the episode, but it looks like he was referencing the book Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. Which looks like a great read on the topic actually!
I’m 51 this week. My dream as a 8’ish year old (early 80’s) was to fly a 747 for Eastern Airlines. Of course Eastern was US only and didn’t fly internationally. But I became nearsighted and my parents told me I could never become a pilot. I believed them. 😭. I love commercial airplanes all my life… and it saddens me what has happened to Boeing through the years. I’m a poor plebe, but I do own a share… of Airbus. 🤨
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Your comment is surprisingly spot on. One of my professors from community college that I remain in contact with is a retired AF pilot and long time Boeing manufacturing engineer from well before the M-D merger. He quit only a year or two after the merger because he saw the huge writing on the wall with how suddenly Boeing’s corporate behavior changed. He had contacts at M-D who warned him too and he got out while the getting was good.
I 100% agree with this. It was honestly horrible watching them go from “the people who make the best planes” to stock buyback-a-palooza
For the record, pre-merger Boeing pulled the same crap with their rudder hardcover crashes in the early 90’s. Everything from telling NTSB to blame the wrong piece of equipment to blaming the pilots, even to stealing evidence.
