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

Story of how Boeing was over-run by McDonnell Douglas executives after the merger and went from an engineering led, safety first firm to a company seemingly focussed on amassing wealth for the executives and shareholders. The result of following the Jack Welch philosophy of out-sourcing, job cuts and "efficiency" led to a shocking series of cut corners, deception and lack of governance. This was the Boeing 737 Max.After reading this you may be worried about ever flying on a Boeing aircraft again.

If you are looking for a technical book that concentrates on the aircraft, this book is not for you. He writes pretty much exclusively about the management and other people involved. There is no detailed explanation about why MCAS was needed, for example. I would have been more interested in such detail.

excellent story. instead of building stuff, boeing became focused on efficiency (costs) and safety/design got sidelined. the concept of planes being sold as "no frills" where some technical pieces are optional is so absurd. i was somewhat dumbfounded that there were not more accidents, so maybe the pilots worked something out.

I enjoyed this book which I found difficult to put down. There were two fatal incidents involving the 737 MAX aircraft when all those on board were lost. The MAX was the most recent iteration of the Boeing 737 jet aircraft but contained a software fix which had not been sufficiently tested and was able to take control of the aircraft to make it uncontrollable - this was known to Boeing. In my view, this book does answer the question - how was this allowed to happen. Corporate greed was a factor which compromised all those involved in certifying that the aircraft was safe which led to those fatal consequences.

This paperback version of Peter Robison's "Flying Blind" is a detailed account of the scandal surrounding the two Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes & the failures regarding the regulators & the software issue that cause of the tragedies in 2018 & 2019.Reading this as the US aerospace giant is mired in a new crisis with 737 Max 9 following the door plug incident adds to the relevance of findings of the book.There are so many lessons to be learned about these crashes, the need for proper investigation work.A book well worth reading about Boeing culture too especially in the 1990s as aerospace sector in the US was in flux at the end of the cold war with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

For many years Boeing bucked the trend and their focus was on producing safe & profitable aircraft.This book is almost entirely devoted to explaining how returns for shareholders became its raison d'être at the expense of producing quality aircraft. It also explains the symbiotic realationship with the FAA and political interference for the profit motive.For the cynics amongst us, there are no shocking revelations just a confirmation that making money for shareholders is almost the sole reason for a large number of companies in many different fields to exist these days.Much like the famed Ford Pinto design flaw whaich resulted in cars catching fire in relatively minor accidents and the cost benefit analysis showing that correcting the design fault was more expensive than the likely amounts of compensation paid to victims, so Boeing decided that the risks were worth it.However if you are expecting a treatise on the design and testing failures of the 737Max you will be disappointed, there is realtively little technical detail, it focuses almost entirely on the machinations of top level management not only to line the pockets of shareholders, but their own as well.No suprise to cynics like me, but for the more optimistic in the world a cautionery tale that needs to be read to at least start to understand how the business world, irrespective of the industry involved, really works

This is a very important book. It describes, in detail, how Boeing went from being a widely respected aircraft manufacturer known for engineering excellence and attention to detail, to a company which sacrificed its excellence and reputation for the benefit of stockholders and senior managers. The story follows logically from the sub-prime crisis and the, almost, worldwide financial crash of recent memory. The same greed and disdain for ‘experts’ are there in spades. (I remember reading an aphorism coined by a Sunday newspaper columnist many years ago defining ‘managers’ as, “Those who seek to control what they do not understand.”. A bit cynical maybe, but I saw it reflected in every page of this book.Flying Blind takes us back to the beginnings of Boeing, long, long before the 737 MAX tragedies. It reminds us of the glory days of Boeing before the rot slowly set in, aided by the almost total abandonment of responsibility for oversight by those in the relevant federal bodies.Maybe something will change, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Its quite an interesting read and well written, but really the book is more a political diatribe than any particular analysis of the 737 MAX issues, which are covered only relatively briefly. The author seems to have set out with a very clear mindset about corporate culture issues at Boeing and seems to have largely written his own justification for his belief in that mindset. I think the analysis ignores the evolution of systems engineering across high tech industry and defence in the same era. This book would be so much better if it considered the science, engineering and management of safety in more detail and spent less time telling us about corporate finance, bonuses and the love lives of senior executives.

This book takes you just far enough inside Boeing to make you a bit scared.I always viewed Boeing as a sort of "American gold standard" of technical competency, but in this case one's view of one of America's legendary corporations is shaken right to the roots.

Interessante historia do nascimento da Boeing ate os dias de hoje com seus sucessos e fracassos

This is a very well written, very well researched book, on a complex and disturbing series of events.Will Boeing change for the better as a result of the 737 MAX tragedy? Not unless Boeing can once again make excellent engineering be its top priority. And not unless Boeing can find a way to attract and to retain the best people, at all levels, and provide its people with the tools, the resources, and the work environment to consistently do a great job.While this was a great and attention-grabbing book, well worth reading by anyone who works for Boeing, holds stock in the company, or is ever a passenger on a commercial airplane, it would have made the book even better if the author would have found a way to describe a few days in the life of (anonymous) Boeing employees.If I were the author, I would have addressed the crowded, noisy, distracting work environment, where engineers and software developers struggle to concentrate on the myriad details while working in a real-life Dilbert cartoon in densely packed cubicle farms.I would have also addressed some of the "Lazy B" culture, in which some deadbeat employees leave work at 10:45 AM every day, and their utter lack of any commitment to the job goes undetected by managers for a year.These two examples are based upon my years of personal observations at Boeing, and it would have been interesting to read about them in this well-researched book to confirm or deny that what I saw were not isolated cases.I would also have liked to see some discussion of whether the aerodynamic properties of the 737 MAX remain the same, because of the location of the engines, far forward on the wing. If these aerodynamic properties still prevail, then won't the plane still have a tendency to pitch upwards to a degree such that there is a risk of a stall? And how is that going to be dealt with?As I am writing this, it was just reported in the Seattle newspapers that Boeing has sold its extensive Boeing Commercial Airplane division headquarters buildings located at the former site of the Longacres racetrack. The author mentioned in the book that such a sale was likely to take place, and now it has.I hope that, as a result of the 737 MAX experience, Boeing can change for the better, and this book should be required reading by those in upper management or on the board of directors. Boeing had a lot going for it, and it can turn things around, but will it?

Si te interesan los entresijos de Boeing (y otras grandes corporaciones) y conocer a fondo la historia del 737 MAX, te gustará el libro. Le doy 3 estrellas porque me ha parecido un poco repetitivo e insistente en varias ideas.

This is not a only story of 2 tragic accidents. It is a story of how shareholder-value-driven greed corrupts an engineering safety culture in a once respectable company. This resulted in a series of dangerous and irresponsable shortcuts taken by Boeing in order to reduce cost (like relying on the correct function of one single sensor, actively preventing pilots from receiving adequate training, and not mentioning critical software functions in manuals). Boeing employees criticizing quality and safety problems were silenced. Boeing officials knew what they were doing but deliberately decided to take the unsafe route.This could happen due to the fact that Boeing after years of deregulation actively captured the responsible FAA to the point, that no independent control of airworthiness of Boeing aircraft was left.Finally greed killed 346 people.