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Thanks. For listening to the front Line audio

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cast. The. Enhanced audio version

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of our documentaries. We.

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Line Dispatch available wherever you get

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your podcasts. right? Now

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here is the audio cast of Boeings

0:15

Fatal Flaw. Updated after

0:17

it's original broadcast and September: Twenty

0:20

Twenty One. The

0:42

plane suddenly lost a section of

0:44

it's fuselage mid flight. ebay panel

0:46

is still a aircraft coming. Amid

0:48

new problems were Boeing Seven Thirty Seven

0:50

March where was the oversight to make

0:53

sure the most critical pieces were there.

0:55

A special update to the award winning

0:57

investigation with The New York Times into

1:00

the problem plagued or print. And

1:02

and slide stacey six ten went. Missing from

1:04

and then the second plane crashing. Opiate

1:06

crashed minutes after taking. On this

1:09

was going to be an existential crisis for

1:11

the company they. Had no idea

1:13

how powerful M cast. Was and

1:15

phase oversight was sorely lacking.

1:17

the mounting pressure on owing.

1:20

This was supposed to be one of

1:22

the most highly scrutinized slayings and the

1:24

world. Here you are with another incident

1:26

that was risking passengers lives were. Going

1:28

to approach this number one of

1:30

knowledge you final state Now on

1:32

frontline. It had direct echoes of

1:34

everything we have been reporting on

1:37

years ago: Boeings Fatal Flaw. Front.

1:43

Line is made possible by

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1:51

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heighten. public awareness of critical issues.

2:02

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McPherson Foundation, committed to building a

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2:09

More at macfound.org. The

2:11

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support from John and Joanne Haagler,

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the Frederick G. Rydall Living Trust.

2:42

Jakarta, Indonesia, October 2018.

2:46

Aviation analyst Jerry Sojutman.

2:49

On the morning of October 29th, I was

2:51

woken up by a colleague who

2:55

alerted me that a line

2:57

aircraft crashed. He said,

2:59

it's the max. And I

3:01

was surprised because it was a new aircraft.

3:04

My company provided the air data

3:06

for aircraft flying around the Jakarta

3:08

area. So I went to the

3:10

computer and looked at the data. It

3:15

was immediately apparent that something

3:17

was wrong. The

3:20

plane went up to about 2,000 feet,

3:23

just over a minute after takeoff. And

3:25

the plane had a bit of a dive. And

3:27

then the plane climbed to about 5,000 feet. But

3:33

then at 5,000 feet, the plane was

3:35

fluctuating up and down. And then

3:37

the plane just started diving. It just

3:39

didn't exist. You don't see

3:41

planes diving onto monitor. That

3:44

was powerful. Why did it go down?

3:51

The Lion Air Flight 610 went missing from

3:53

radar. 189

3:55

people were killed in the crash of Lion Air Flight

3:58

610. The

4:02

plane was a new Boeing 737 MAX. What

4:05

do we know about this 737 MAX 8? The

4:08

fastest selling jet in Boeing history

4:11

just introduced the year before. We don't yet

4:13

know what caused this crash. A

4:16

breakthrough this evening is a flight data recorder. It holds many

4:18

of the keys. The

4:21

data from the black box quickly got to

4:23

FAA engineers in the United States. Seattle,

4:26

Washington. Former FAA engineer Joe

4:28

Jacobson. There is a

4:30

purity of this data. It comes directly from the

4:32

black boxes. So it's

4:35

recording airspeed, altitude. The

4:38

data showed what appeared to be a glitch. Something

4:40

repeatedly moving part of the plane's

4:43

tail, controlling its pitch. It didn't

4:45

take long, just a couple of

4:47

minutes to see that there was

4:49

rapid movement of the horizontal stabilizer.

4:52

Probably the fastest way to kill yourself in

4:54

an airplane is to have the stabilizer malfunction.

4:58

In New York City, New York Times reporter

5:00

James Lance. My spine literally

5:02

tangled when I saw the traces from the black

5:04

box. The plane continually

5:06

tried to push the nose down.

5:09

And the pilots were trying

5:11

over and over again to stop the plane.

5:14

And in the end, they

5:17

lose that battle. What

5:19

Boeing had not told airlines or their

5:21

pilots was that it had put a

5:23

powerful software system on the new airplane.

5:26

In the Lion Air crash,

5:28

this system was receiving incorrect

5:30

information. And that made a

5:32

plane dive straight downward and

5:34

destroy itself. Inside

5:37

Boeing. They quickly diagnosed a problem

5:40

and began working on a fix. But

5:42

they stood by the max as hundreds of them

5:45

took to the air around the world, carrying

5:47

thousands of passengers. A

5:50

company alerted pilots about handling a

5:52

potential malfunction. Boeing and the SAA

5:55

today warned airlines and sensors on 737 MAX

5:57

8 jet- malfunction.

6:01

Boeing is calling this a formal advisory and

6:03

it's been issued to the pilots. New

6:05

York Times reporter Natalie Kitron.

6:07

The reporting showed Boeing knew

6:09

that it was risky, but

6:12

their response was

6:14

to blame the pilots.

6:16

Pilots did not hit cut-off switches.

6:19

Boeing had that action as part

6:21

of well-established protocols for all 737s.

6:23

And that led to a series

6:25

of decisions that kept the plane

6:27

in the air. And

6:30

then we got another crash. Adhesivably

6:32

Ethiopia. March 2019. Breaking

6:35

news out of Ethiopia where a

6:37

plane went down... It was Ethiopian

6:39

Airlines flight 302 on its way

6:41

to Nairobi from Addis Ababa. A

6:43

new 737 MAX 8 jetliner crashed minutes after

6:47

taking launch. Two crashes, the

6:49

same view. 346 people

6:52

killed, an iconic American

6:54

company's reputation in failures. The

6:58

story of the Boeing 737 MAX

7:00

would end up exposing corporate

7:02

deception at a broken regulatory

7:04

process. But at the center was

7:07

a software system supposed to keep people

7:09

safe that instead led to

7:11

their deaths. The

7:21

black boxes from the Ethiopian crash have

7:23

been recovered. It's

7:27

the second disaster within five months involving the

7:29

Boeing 737 MAX. That's

7:34

the same kind of aircraft that

7:36

crashed back in October. It is an

7:38

easier. 157

7:44

people including passengers and crew members

7:46

on board, all dead. Windows

7:49

corrondra lost family members in the crash.

7:52

The first thing you get to see at the

7:54

site is a very big hole. And

7:58

then to only imagine this is is

8:00

the place that they were last alive.

8:03

Nadia Milleron lost her daughter. We

8:06

learned that there were no survivors on the

8:08

plane. And then our objective

8:11

was to go and bring my

8:13

daughter's body home. Now

8:17

you're in close proximity, you're able

8:19

to see the fine details, you're

8:22

able to maybe think these are

8:24

personal effects, belongs to Cara, my

8:26

sister, my mom, this

8:30

bone whose bone is this. And

8:37

they told us that there was no

8:40

part of a human that was bigger

8:42

than a femur that was left. Taurus

8:46

Dumo lost his sister. That

8:48

whole experience is just

8:50

a jumble of images and painful

8:53

thoughts and blankness really

8:55

to me. I don't really, I

8:59

can't really make sense of it. The

9:03

crash of Ethiopian Flight 302 in 2019 was

9:07

the second time in five months that a Boeing 737 Max had

9:09

gone down. As

9:18

families gathered at the crash site, across

9:21

the world, reporters at the New York

9:23

Times were investigating what had been going

9:25

wrong with Boeing's new commercial jet. Reporter

9:28

Natalie Kitreloff. Statistically

9:30

speaking, the likelihood that

9:32

these two accidents were

9:34

not in some way

9:36

connected was extremely

9:39

low. It

9:41

suggested that there was something going on with

9:44

the plane and obviously we were determined to

9:46

find out. Reporter

9:49

David Gelles. It was

9:51

clear from the get-go that Boeing was

9:53

in full crisis mode. Boeing CEO Dennis

9:55

Muhlenberg in 2019. As

9:58

the facts from the accident become available. and

10:00

we understand the necessary next steps,

10:02

we're taking action to fully reassure

10:05

airlines and their passengers of the

10:07

safety of the 737 MAX. This

10:10

was gonna be an existential crisis for the

10:12

company if these two events were related. China

10:15

grounds the plane first. Other

10:18

international regulators ground the plane, then the

10:20

European Union grounds the plane. But in

10:22

the US, the FAA says it's not

10:24

grounding the plane. Boeing and the FAA

10:26

all were saying that they were sort

10:28

of waiting for the facts before

10:30

they rushed to judgment and grounded such

10:32

an important new plane. For

10:35

months, Times was reporting there was

10:37

something wrong with the 737 MAX itself. The

10:42

software system that pilots had

10:44

not known existed. Reporter James

10:47

Glans. The maneuvering characteristics augmentation

10:49

system, or MCAS. The

10:53

function of this previously

10:55

undisclosed system was to

10:58

save the plane when it

11:00

believed that the plane might go into a

11:02

stall and fall out of the sky. And

11:06

so this system was designed then to

11:08

sort of take over the stabilizer and

11:10

push that nose back down in case

11:12

the pilot gets in trouble. Then,

11:16

the major setback for the

11:18

company. Radar

11:24

showed the two planes flight patterns were

11:26

eerily similar. David Gelles. Days after the

11:28

rest of the world had reached the

11:30

same conclusion, they finally grounded

11:32

the plane. For the

11:34

New York Times reporters, all

11:36

the signs pointed to MCAS. Natalie

11:38

Cattrell. We knew that MCAS was

11:40

the beginning, but we knew that

11:42

we needed to start with this

11:44

system. Reporter Jack Neigas. This was

11:47

a really problematic software system in the

11:50

way it was designed. Okay,

11:53

well, then how the hell did it end up in the plane

11:55

this way? Boeing

12:01

declined to be interviewed for this film. In

12:04

a statement, the company said safety

12:06

as it's top priority and it

12:08

has worked closely with regulators, investigators,

12:11

and stakeholders to implement changes that

12:13

ensure accidents like things never happen

12:15

again. This

12:20

story really begins in two thousand and

12:22

eleven. Monday.

12:30

Oh, in an Airbus and the

12:32

going head to head for at

12:35

least a decade, but an Airbus

12:37

and and quickly catching up and

12:39

really nipping at poems heels. It's

12:41

the best air ever ever of

12:43

aircraft numbers. And. Twenty

12:45

Ten Airbus introduce the a Three

12:48

Twenty Neo. Are more

12:50

fuel efficient version of a stalwart

12:52

a Three Twenty. The A Three

12:54

Twenty is the direct competitor to

12:56

the Boeing Seven Thirty Seven. Aviation

12:59

can seldom Scott Hamilton Airlines wanted

13:01

an airplane that was more fuel

13:03

efficient than the airplanes than and

13:05

surface Airbus chose to return the

13:08

A Three Twenty into what they

13:10

call Disney or the new engine

13:12

option. It's a wreck or two

13:14

hundred. Honest With a Three Twenty,

13:16

Neo was one of the fastest

13:19

selling. Programs of the recent history.

13:23

And replace enormous pressure on bowing

13:25

to respond. Oh,

13:30

and frankly, was caught flat footed

13:32

within a couple of weeks. Airbus

13:34

and American Airlines have the preliminary

13:36

workings of what would become the

13:39

first deal for American to buy

13:41

Airbus planes in more than a

13:43

decade. Gerard Arpey, the Ceo of

13:45

American Airlines cause gym next morning

13:47

the cel going to the courtesy

13:49

call at this point just letting

13:52

their long time supplier of airplanes

13:54

know they're going to go with

13:56

the competition. And

13:58

that is essentially. Dagger in

14:01

the heart of Boeing and within

14:03

forty eight hours, Boy in the

14:05

had decided to pull the trigger

14:07

on launch in the region Seven

14:09

Thirty Seven which later became branded

14:11

as the Max. From.

14:14

The very beginning from his birth. It.

14:17

Was marked. By.

14:19

Competitive. Within.

14:26

Days of The Skin Seven Thirty

14:28

Seven Max Crash Another investigation was

14:31

underway in Washington, Dc. We

14:34

started getting information in from

14:36

whistleblowers from people both current

14:39

and former essay and Boeing

14:41

employees. Doug. Pasternak

14:43

was leading a Congressional investigation.

14:46

This is his first interview about what he

14:48

found. As

14:51

soon as the second accident

14:54

occurred we started our investigation

14:56

and or focus was on

14:58

the design development and certification

15:00

of the Max. We got

15:03

hundreds of thousands of pages

15:05

of documents from both. One

15:09

of the things that really struck me

15:11

from speaking to a lot of Boeing

15:13

employees ways that they were so excited

15:16

to go to work at Boing. Boing

15:20

is a tremendous engineering

15:22

company. In a technical

15:24

marvel fight almost without

15:26

failure, They point to

15:28

a degradation of that

15:30

mindset, and that safety

15:32

suffered as a result.

15:35

Looking backwards I think

15:37

you can clearly see

15:39

the trajectory dead tragedy

15:41

but along the way

15:44

as boing. Boing

15:50

publicly said The Max went

15:52

through a deliberate six year

15:54

development process, but in their

15:56

first stories, the New York

15:58

Times reporters found insiders. Who

16:00

said that Boeing executives had been putting

16:02

the pressure on to design the new

16:05

seven? Thirty Seven quickly and cheaply. Reporter:

16:07

Jack Nicklaus. One specific engineer we spoke

16:09

to was really lucky. He helped design

16:12

the cockpit in the Max, and he

16:14

talked a lot about how there was

16:16

an obsession in limiting changes. This

16:19

program was a much more intense

16:21

pressure cooker I've ever been. To

16:24

be was told avoid. Costs:

16:27

Minimum change to simplify the

16:29

training differences and to get

16:32

done quickly. Reporter. David

16:34

Guinness that put. What

16:36

had happened in the context of

16:39

this broader corporate narrative? Yeah. Speed.

16:42

As it was what they sued a Desire. There

16:45

was a lot of decision

16:47

making that was somewhat arbitrary

16:49

and didn't is all that

16:51

much of the avoid injury

16:54

considers healthy debate. The

16:57

challenge to the boy designers

16:59

or is that any desire

17:01

to recreate. would not. Tried

17:03

any new training that required

17:05

a simulator. In

17:07

his recorded interview with The Times. But.

17:10

He said Boeing management was so

17:12

determined to avoid the expense of

17:14

new training. they made a bold

17:17

promise, made a commitment was southwest

17:19

that the airplane they delivered that

17:21

had a new level. The differences

17:24

training would pay the company one

17:26

million dollars per every or point

17:28

of Ebert. If

17:31

the Max required simulator

17:33

training, it would rebate

17:35

southwest. A million dollars

17:38

per plane And their that incentive.

17:40

That's why I was so important

17:42

boeing. The pilot training be kept

17:45

to a minimum. All. Of this

17:47

comes. Out of. Trying. To

17:49

give airlines. The

17:51

most fuel efficient. Version.

17:54

Of a plane that they can spend as

17:56

little money. Train. their pilots us That

18:01

meant Boeing had to do a number of

18:03

things to make this plane fly like the

18:06

old one. And that was because the Max

18:09

had much bigger engines

18:11

on it to make them more

18:13

fuel efficient. But because the 737

18:16

was a 50-year-old airplane at this

18:18

time practically, when it came time

18:20

for Boeing to put those engines

18:22

on the wings, the

18:24

engines were so darn big they had to

18:27

mount them further forward on

18:29

the wings. They were

18:31

testing in this wind team and they were discovering

18:33

the plane was handling just a little bit differently.

18:35

But they didn't even have a plane built yet,

18:37

so this wasn't happening in a real plane. This

18:40

is something you have to fix. And they leaned

18:43

on a system that they had used

18:46

once before in a military tanker.

18:49

It was designed as a system on the

18:51

plane to really

18:54

just smooth out the way the

18:56

plane handled. It was

18:58

MCAS. It

19:01

was designed for these extremely unusual

19:03

maneuvers, situations that

19:06

hopefully the plane would never get in. And

19:09

to prevent the nose from getting

19:11

too high, a system would

19:13

move the stabilizer on the back of

19:16

the plane to push the nose back

19:18

down. But

19:23

inside Boeing, there were early

19:25

signs of trouble. House Transportation

19:27

Committee Investigator Doug Pasternak. One

19:29

of the first documents we

19:31

found was from November of

19:33

2012. A

19:36

Boeing test pilot was flying

19:40

the MAX in a flight simulator

19:43

and trying to respond to an activation

19:45

of MCAS. And

19:47

that resulted in what he

19:50

described as a catastrophic event.

19:54

It showed that if that had been

19:56

in real life, he could have lost

19:58

the airplane. Realize from

20:01

that moment on, even a

20:03

Boeing test pilots may have

20:05

trouble responding to Mtx. The.

20:08

Company kept quiet about the

20:11

simulator experience. And appeared

20:13

to have discounted the test results. Still,

20:16

In the following months, some Boeing

20:19

employees suggested simply removing all references

20:21

to M Gas from training manuals.

20:25

Boeing from almost the

20:27

very beginning realize the

20:30

significance of them cast

20:32

and the significance En

20:34

Cas would have on

20:36

pilot simulator training. It's

20:39

we emphasize M Cast

20:41

is a new function.

20:43

There may be a

20:45

graders certification and training

20:47

Impact Recommended Action Investigate

20:50

deletion of M Cast

20:52

nomenclature. What? Batman Ways

20:54

Bad East Me Sad M

20:56

Cast was new function. The

20:59

essay was gonna scrutinizing a lot

21:01

more. Growing

21:05

told congress had kept the

21:07

fk informed about m cast

21:09

development and final configuration. But.

21:13

Boeing has a complex and close

21:15

relationship with the agency that oversees

21:17

it reporter Natalie to try say

21:19

airplanes are part of the story,

21:21

but so are the regulators. The.

21:24

Essay: Regulated Boeing in

21:26

part with a handful

21:29

of Boeing employees whose

21:31

paid sex came from

21:34

Boeing. But. Whose

21:36

jobs? Were.

21:39

To represent. The interests

21:41

of the essay. It's

21:44

a decades old arrangement known

21:46

as delegation that allows federal

21:48

agencies to give oversight powers

21:50

to the companies they regulate.

21:54

In. the beginning there was a

21:56

really good reason says the

21:58

essay was certain certifying things

22:00

that made no sense to have

22:03

them certify every single exit sign

22:05

or bathroom sign or paint. The

22:08

issue that many of the

22:10

FAA employees that we talked to had

22:13

was that it went way beyond.

22:18

Over time, Congress passed

22:20

laws that pushed the

22:22

FAA to hand over the

22:24

responsibility for more and more tasks

22:28

to the company, to Boeing. David

22:30

Gillis. With this level of delegation

22:32

between the company and the

22:34

FAA, it became hard to

22:36

understand who was working for who. In

22:42

the design of the 737 MAX, many

22:45

things would be delegated to Boeing. That

22:48

included MCAS. Under

22:52

the impression that this was a relatively

22:55

benign system, the

22:57

FAA agreed to delegate it. This

22:59

is the custom with the FAA and Boeing.

23:02

And that's what happened in this case. It

23:04

handed it over. In

23:10

a statement, the FAA blamed

23:13

ineffective coordination and said

23:15

it had not focused on MCAS when

23:17

it certified the MAX because Boeing had

23:19

not identified MCAS as significant. After

23:23

orders from Congress, the FAA has

23:25

since made changes to the delegation process.

23:32

After years of going through design

23:35

and development, the 737 MAX prototype

23:37

was rolled out of Boeing's rent

23:39

factory for its maiden flight. this

24:00

first maiden flight. Ed Wilson, he and

24:02

his co-pilot start to realize that

24:05

the 737 MAX is

24:07

not handling as smoothly as it should in

24:09

certain low speed situations. It's shortly after takeoff.

24:11

You know, it's still kind of climbing to

24:13

a stand. It's not going full speed. Boeing

24:17

engineers had an idea for how to deal

24:19

with this. They

24:21

know about MCAS, and they know that

24:23

MCAS was actually used for a similar

24:26

situation in these high speed

24:28

videos. And so,

24:30

theoretically, MCAS could also

24:33

be used in these other situations to

24:35

also smooth out the handling. Crucially,

24:37

it's already been created. It's already

24:40

been approved, and it's something that

24:42

we could just apply, you know,

24:45

to a different phase of flight. It's

24:47

actually a pretty easy fix.

24:51

This ends up being an extremely

24:54

fateful decision. They

24:56

enable the stabilizer to move much

24:58

more, actually four times as much.

25:01

Now the system's designed for low

25:03

speed situations, like just after takeoff.

25:06

And after takeoff is when the plane

25:08

is still only a few

25:11

thousand feet over the ground. That means you

25:13

have much less room for error. It's

25:15

happening in automated fashion and

25:17

in repeated fashion. This

25:20

fundamentally changes MCAS. It

25:24

makes it much more aggressive, much

25:27

more risky. It's a far more dangerous

25:29

system. Boeing

25:33

was doubling down on the system, expanding

25:36

it, despite the earlier

25:38

catastrophic result in a simulator test.

25:42

The Times reporting on MCAS focused

25:44

on a former Boeing pilot. I

25:48

started to hear about a pilot at Boeing

25:52

whose name was Mark Forkner. The

25:55

chief technical pilot for the 737. David

25:58

Gelles. He was this. key liaison

26:01

between the company and

26:03

the FAA. He was

26:05

the person who personally

26:07

emailed the

26:09

FAA asking for MCAS to

26:11

be removed from the pilot manual. That

26:17

was an important piece of this

26:19

because we understood that the FAA

26:21

really didn't know that MCAS

26:24

became more powerful. He

26:27

was speaking absolutely on behalf of the

26:30

company. This was not some low-level employee.

26:33

And he was asking for something that was really

26:35

quite substantial, that a new

26:37

piece of software that made the plane

26:39

behave in ways that it previously hadn't,

26:42

be concealed from the pilots. This

26:44

is where the commercial

26:46

pressures from the executive level

26:49

come right down to the

26:51

development of the airplane.

26:54

Investigator Doug Pasternak. Mark Forkner

26:56

certainly was not a lone

26:58

actor in what he did.

27:00

He was following through on

27:02

a policy by Boeing to

27:04

ensure that the program did

27:07

not have to put pilots in

27:09

a flight simulator. It got to

27:11

the point where Mark

27:13

Forkner got an award for

27:16

keeping training on the 737 MAX to a

27:19

minimum. Nearly

27:22

eight months after requesting that MCAS be removed

27:25

from pilot training manuals, Forkner texted a

27:27

colleague with a shocking realization. This

27:32

appears to be the moment where Mark

27:34

Forkner learns that MCAS has been expanded.

27:38

He writes in that message, I basically lied

27:40

to the regulators unknowingly. But

27:43

he never went back and corrected the

27:45

record. He never went back and fixed the error. Mark

27:52

Forkner wouldn't speak to us. He

27:55

was indicted for lying to FAA

27:57

investigators about MCAS, but later found

27:59

not to be a guilty of all charges in

28:01

federal court. His lawyer

28:03

told the Times reporters that his

28:05

communications with the FAA were honest

28:08

and that he would never jeopardize the safety

28:10

of other pilots or their passengers. When

28:16

Boeing engineers expanded the MCAS

28:18

system, they included a feature

28:20

that would make it particularly dangerous. The

28:24

planes have millions of parts in them and

28:27

there's one little one on the

28:29

737 that sticks out of the

28:31

fuselage. See that little black circle

28:33

there that is called the angle

28:35

of attack sensor. On

28:38

the 737 MAX, it

28:40

had the power to trigger MCAS. Reporter

28:43

James Glantz. It's the AOA sensor

28:46

that is one of

28:48

the crucial parameters to the computer

28:51

to tell the plane that's in

28:53

a perilous condition. The

28:56

angle of attack sensor would activate

28:58

MCAS by telling the system that the

29:00

plane's nose was too high and then MCAS

29:02

would try to push the nose down. What

29:05

if this sensor is broken

29:07

for whatever reason? MCAS

29:10

never realizes

29:14

and so it keeps pushing the nose

29:16

of the plane down over and

29:18

over again. Congressional

29:22

investigators would later find documents showing

29:24

that Boeing engineers had raised

29:26

this very concern. Doug Pasternak. An

29:29

engineer asked, what if we

29:31

have a faulty AOA sensor because

29:34

AOA sensors are known to be

29:36

faulty? You know, what happens to

29:38

the airplane? So

29:41

you have those concerns raised

29:43

and the responses again from

29:45

Boeing engineers was to essentially

29:48

dismiss those. May 2017. Boeing

29:55

began delivering the new 737 MAX in mid-2017. At

30:00

the outset, 737 Mac

30:02

was arguably one of

30:05

Boeing's biggest successes. It has become its

30:07

best-selling jet ever. Advanced

30:09

sales were estimated at $370 billion. American

30:14

had orders for 100, Southwest

30:16

Airlines for 200. Boeing

30:19

had focused especially hard on selling

30:21

to developing markets in Asia, where

30:24

Lion Air's parent company became the first

30:26

customer to fly the 737-M. Signing

30:30

an agreement worth more than $20 billion. Airlines

30:34

loved it. There was a years-long waiting

30:36

list to get one. David

30:38

Gelles. But Boeing's signature

30:41

new jet had a fatal flaw.

30:46

Breaking news. These search for wreckage is

30:48

underway after a passenger jet with 189

30:50

people on board crashed. A

30:53

Lion Air Boeing 737. Investigators

30:57

from the U.S. National Transportation Safety

30:59

Board contributed to an analysis of

31:01

what led to the Lion Air

31:03

crash. Dana Schultz. Meeting

31:06

up to the Lion Air accident,

31:08

the angle of attack probe itself

31:10

was miscalibrated. The maintenance

31:12

crew was not able to

31:14

properly identify this miscalibration. The

31:18

angle of attack sensor sent bad data to

31:20

MCAS. The police thought it was in

31:22

a stall because of bad information. As

31:24

a consequence of this angle of

31:27

attack data error, the MCAS

31:30

activated when it really

31:32

shouldn't have. Five

31:38

months later, almost the exact same

31:40

thing happens halfway across the world. Two

31:43

is 737. Max 8 jetliner crashed

31:45

today. Investigators say that flight had

31:47

similar problems to the Lion Air

31:49

crash. Once again, the angle of

31:51

attack sensor is malfunctioning. But there is this

31:54

question now about systems within the aircraft. If

31:57

MCAS hadn't been on those planes, those

31:59

planes wouldn't be. of crash. It's that simple. Not

32:33

like there is a menu of how you need to react, you're

32:36

just there. It's like motionless. You

32:40

just feel infuriated by

32:43

anyone and everyone at that point. I

32:48

remember the Boeing Company blaming what they

32:50

called the foreign pilots and

32:53

deflecting blame to

32:55

them, saying they are the cause.

33:02

All of us at Boeing are deeply sorry for

33:04

the loss of life in the Ethiopians Airlines Flight

33:08

302 and Lion Air Flight

33:10

610 accidents. Boeing

33:12

CEO Dennis Muhlenberg latched onto findings that

33:15

inexperience and lack of training were part

33:17

of a chain of events that led

33:19

to the crashes. It was

33:22

a controversial position. Understand that these airplanes

33:24

are flown in the hands of pilots

33:26

and in some cases our system safety

33:29

analysis includes not only the engineering design

33:31

but also the actions that pilots

33:33

would take as

33:35

part of a failure scenario. Boeing's

33:39

contention from the beginning was

33:41

that even though the pilots

33:44

did not know that MCAS

33:46

existed, that they did not need

33:48

to know that. And

33:51

in some cases those procedures

33:53

were not completely followed. Boeing

33:55

believed that the pilots should have been able

33:57

to realize that it was very

33:59

similar to a runaway

34:01

stabilizer situation. Runaway

34:04

stabilizer is an aviation term

34:06

for a malfunctioning stabilizer. After

34:10

the Lion Air crash, Boeing had

34:12

issued a directive to pilots to be aware

34:14

of this possibility and told them

34:16

what to do if it happened. Natalie Citroen.

34:18

When that part of the tail

34:20

was not acting the way

34:22

that it should be, you take manual control

34:24

of it. The pilots could have stopped their

34:27

roller coaster ride by turning these two switches

34:29

off. Jack Neigle. To shut

34:31

off power to the stabilizer. You stop

34:33

it from moving on its own. And then

34:35

you start cranking a wheel in

34:38

the cockpit that literally will manually

34:40

move the stabilizer back to where

34:42

you want it to move. The

34:45

issue was, were there things

34:47

happening inside the cockpit that might

34:49

have made that harder to do?

34:54

That's what we were asking. David

34:58

Delos. When we finally

35:00

got the preliminary black box data

35:02

from the Ethiopian crash, we called

35:04

up Dennis Tayser, an American Airlines

35:07

737 pilot, and

35:09

sent him the data, and we

35:11

read through it together. My mission

35:14

was to provide them, I'm

35:17

in the cockpit, I see what's happening now. So

35:19

we walked through each line and

35:23

I had no idea what was in it. I knew

35:25

that the crew had an experienced

35:28

captain and a

35:30

lesser experienced first officer. We

35:34

go, second by second, through

35:36

these few minutes of this

35:38

flight. Going through the steps

35:40

that the pilots had taken and saying, yep,

35:42

I would have done that, yep, I

35:44

would have done that. As

35:47

soon as they lift off the ground, all

35:49

these different alerts started popping up. The air

35:51

speed was unreliable, the altitude was showing unreliable.

35:54

There were alerts related to that, but

35:57

they bring the gear up and they continue

35:59

to climb out. Two

36:01

minutes into the flight, based on

36:03

faulty data from the AOA sensor, MCAS

36:06

kicked in and began pushing the

36:08

nose down. And

36:11

I have very

36:16

clear memory of

36:20

noting a time mark where

36:22

the first officer is

36:25

quoted as saying, stab trim cut out switches,

36:28

which takes the weapon away from MCAS, which

36:30

is what Boeing told us to do. And

36:34

I have to confess, I probably

36:39

swore, I said, the kid got it right. The

36:42

kid got it right. What

36:46

had happened was the pilots did do

36:48

what they were supposed to do. They

36:51

had cut the electricity off. They

36:54

hit these switches and they tried to

36:56

take manual control. The

36:58

first officer is reaching to this large

37:01

wheel on his left and at the

37:03

manual trim wheel and trying to turn

37:05

it. It's like lifting up a 10 ton

37:08

bucket of cement out of a deep well.

37:11

Problem was, at that point, the plane

37:14

was going so fast that even after

37:16

they took manual control, they

37:18

could not physically

37:20

get the plane to

37:22

right itself. They shouldn't

37:25

have been going that fast. And

37:28

they're continuing to accelerate towards the ground.

37:32

The ground is approaching them. Then

37:35

with no apparent recourse, the

37:37

pilots reached for the stabilizer switches. I'm

37:40

yelling into the cockpit. Don't

37:42

do that. I

37:45

don't know what they're facing. MCAS

37:47

was reactivated. MCAS

37:50

says, hey, I'm back on. Here

37:52

we go. And

37:54

now the airplane is in near full

37:57

nose down trim and you can pull

37:59

back. forever and there's not enough

38:01

metal in the back of the airplane to

38:03

make that airplane come up to a

38:05

nose up. terrain terrain hold up

38:15

Nadia Miller on she died

38:17

when she was 24 it's

38:22

unbearable but she's

38:24

not with us and

38:28

the only thing I can do is try

38:33

to prevent this for other people about

38:38

four months after the Ethiopian Airlines

38:40

crash the family of

38:42

Samia Stomo was about to receive news

38:44

they would find bewildering we

38:47

were eating dinner and I hadn't looked at my phone

38:49

for a long time and

38:51

it was blowing up the

38:54

federal aviation administration now in the

38:56

hot seat in Washington over its

38:58

certification of Boeing 737 Max

39:01

planes senator Susan Collins we

39:04

are joined today by

39:06

Ali Barami the associate

39:08

administrator for aviation safety

39:10

we continue to evaluate Boeing's

39:12

software modification to the MCAS

39:14

in addition FAA official

39:17

Ali Barami had been called before

39:19

congress where he was questioned

39:21

about revelations the FAA had known there

39:23

was a risk of another max crashing

39:26

after lion air if

39:28

the agency's own

39:30

analysis found MCAS to

39:33

be an unacceptable risk

39:36

why did the FAA

39:38

not take immediate

39:40

action to address those

39:42

risks that families

39:44

hadn't known that before they

39:47

didn't know that the safety

39:49

agency gambled with passenger lives

39:51

we knew that eventual solution

39:54

would be to have the

39:56

modification and based on our risk

39:58

assessment we felt that this We

40:00

have sufficient time to be able

40:02

to do the modification, you know,

40:05

and get the final fix. After

40:08

the Lion Air crash, the FAA

40:11

had conducted an analysis of the likelihood

40:13

of another 737 MAX crashing.

40:17

The worst case scenario was

40:20

grim. Investigator Doug Pasternak.

40:22

They looked at the

40:24

probability that there could

40:26

be another crash of

40:28

a 737 MAX if

40:31

the FAA didn't do anything to MCAS

40:33

and just let the plane keep flying.

40:36

And what that assessment showed

40:38

was that FAA predicted there

40:40

could potentially be 15 more

40:44

fatal accidents of 737 MAX

40:47

aircraft over the lifespan of

40:50

the fleet, about

40:53

one crash every other year. But

40:57

in explaining its decision not to ground the

40:59

plane, the FAA said in

41:01

its statement that the actual risk at

41:03

the time, considering the number of planes

41:05

in the air, was as

41:07

close to zero as their calculations allowed.

41:11

The agency had given Boeing 150

41:14

days to fix MCAS and

41:16

issued official directives to pilots. They

41:19

were gambling. They were betting against time

41:21

that they would have a fix to

41:24

MCAS before the next crash

41:26

happened. And unfortunately,

41:28

they lost that bet.

41:32

Not everyone within the FAA agreed

41:34

with the agency's gamble. People

41:38

too quickly jumped to that conclusion that the

41:40

pilot should have been able to figure out

41:42

what's going wrong and be able to intervene

41:44

properly. FAA

41:47

engineer Joe Jacobson examined the data

41:49

from the Lion Air crash and

41:52

quickly raised concerns about the safety of the

41:54

MAX. This is

41:56

his first on-camera interview. This

42:00

is a law purposely designed and

42:02

certified to use only one AOA

42:04

input to drive MCAS to move

42:06

the horizontal stabilizer to high rate.

42:10

Talked to three managers and this is a design

42:12

flaw. They were skeptical, not

42:14

really buying in, saying the pilots should

42:16

have been able to intervene. It's

42:19

a failure. Our

42:22

job is aviation safety and when

42:24

airplanes go down we feel a

42:28

real personal sense of loss and

42:31

remorse and failure and

42:33

it affects a lot of people. In

42:40

the fall of 2019, Rivermax having been

42:43

grounded for seven months, Congressional

42:45

investigators released internal communications. It

42:47

was further evidence of the

42:50

company's attempt to avoid pilot

42:52

training for the MAX. Boeing

43:16

CEO Dennis Mullenberg appeared before

43:19

Congress. Boeing CEO is

43:21

expected to acknowledge that his company made

43:23

mistakes. And here's the first time. This

43:26

guy's in the hot seat. We

43:28

appreciate the opportunity. By then he'd become the face of

43:30

the 737 MAX crisis. Peter

43:33

DeFazio. I've been on this committee a

43:35

long time. We have never undertaken an

43:37

investigation of this magnitude. We

43:39

intentionally put the families close to

43:42

the witness. They're the

43:44

victims here. And it should be like

43:47

a trial in court where

43:49

you get to face the person

43:52

who committed violent activation. The

44:00

of internal going. On

44:03

the shows at selling became

44:05

aware. Marketing

44:13

representatives emphasize financial customers as

44:16

a had reduced I live

44:18

streaming. That low reaction time

44:20

scenarios. For

44:25

those families, the pain of this.

44:28

Was accentuated because. This.

44:30

Evidence that was going up on the screen.

44:33

Was. Information that they sell The

44:35

Mister mom. Just. To.

44:38

Inform his decision about keeping the plane in

44:40

the air. Or. Not, we

44:43

do know that Boeing engineers

44:45

actually proposed placing v emphasis

44:47

on theater demagoguery vulnerable to

44:49

single a Oh, and since

44:51

or failure? Wow. I

45:00

guess. I

45:02

was. With

45:05

Mister Chairman we've asked ourselves that same

45:07

question over and over and if for

45:09

back then we knew everything that we

45:11

know. Now we would have made a

45:13

different decisions. Nadia, Miller on

45:16

she was. Radiating.

45:19

With anger over this.

45:22

Is comes a point where you're not

45:24

a person anymore. I

45:33

hear. You have the Ceo of what

45:35

is one of the most important American

45:37

companies one a most important companies in

45:40

the world and the and upset at

45:42

Us markets are not capable of looking.

45:45

In the eyes. Of the

45:47

mother of a young woman who

45:49

died. On. His airplane. I.

45:53

Know that she wasn't afraid of flying

45:55

and all in sell the last six

45:58

minutes of her legs. That

46:02

is the horrible betrayal.

46:05

That boeing an essay A cause

46:07

for this person, the last moments

46:09

of their life. And. It

46:12

kills me that that trust was

46:14

betrayed. Oh,

46:17

it's really kind of stuff. Starts year.

46:20

Was. Two

46:23

months later where the company's stock amazon.

46:25

Going stock, dropping all the. And.

46:32

Still grounded Dennis Moment

46:34

burgers out. In

46:42

March of two to twenty one families

46:44

gathered in Washington Dc for the second

46:47

anniversary of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines

46:49

flight three or two. Going

46:52

had recently settled or criminal charge

46:54

of conspiracy to defraud the United

46:56

States brought by the Department of

46:58

Justice. We have some breaking news

47:00

on voting fill a bug in

47:02

the settlement Boeing admitted to misleading

47:05

statements, half truths and omissions about

47:07

M. S. It

47:09

agreed to pay two point five

47:11

billion dollars, five hundred million to

47:13

the families of the victims and

47:15

most of the rest said the

47:17

airlines. After

47:21

twenty months of being ground and seven

47:23

thirty seven Max was approved by the

47:25

effect. January.

47:34

Twenty. Twenty. Seven

47:51

Thirty seven Months flown by Alaska

47:54

Airlines had taken off from Portland,

47:56

Oregon, Us minutes earlier. At

48:00

an altitude of 16,000 feet, there's

48:02

a very loud bang. A piece of the plane's

48:04

body is blown out at

48:06

row 26. A passenger. I

48:09

opened my eyes to

48:11

a triangle in the plane, and

48:13

I could see the city lights. There's

48:19

a deafening wind howling through the plane. The

48:22

cockpit door flies open. One

48:24

of the pilots loses her headset. Another pilot

48:26

almost loses his after his head slams into

48:28

a display. There's just chaos.

48:31

The boy sure was sucking off and went out of the

48:34

plane. And

48:37

his mother was holding on to him. I saw half

48:39

of his body was getting stuck out. And

48:41

then I was like, oh my God. I

48:45

look over and there's a hole on the side of the plane. And

48:47

in that moment, I'm just like, oh God, I'm going to die. Yes,

48:50

we are emergency. We are depressurized.

48:52

We do need to return back to you. We

48:54

have an emergency. The plane was able to make

48:56

an emergency landing back in Portland. But

49:00

the incident resurrected concerns about

49:02

Boeing and the MAX. We

49:05

were very fortunate we didn't have a third

49:07

crash on January 5. We need

49:09

everyone to remain seated with their seatbelt on.

49:12

Joe Jacobson has continued to monitor the

49:14

MAX since retiring from the FAA in

49:17

2021. Alaska

49:19

1282 could have very easily been a fatal crash. Higher

49:25

altitudes. Some passengers may

49:27

have lost consciousness.

49:29

Pilots could have lost consciousness.

49:32

This time, the FAA immediately

49:34

grounded similar MAX names so that each

49:37

plane could be inspected. Hundreds of

49:39

flights are canceled across the US. Boeing 737 MAX

49:41

site. Service was

49:43

being put around the world. Reporter

49:45

David Gillis. I honestly wasn't surprised

49:47

when I saw the news. It

49:49

had direct echoes of everything we

49:51

had been reporting on years ago

49:53

as we tried to unpack what

49:55

happened during the MAX crisis. At

49:59

The New York Times. A new team was

50:01

picking up the report on the Max. And.

50:05

Sydney Amber. The real bombshell

50:07

no man can is in

50:09

early February when the National

50:11

Transportation Safety Board really says

50:13

it's preliminary report on the

50:15

incident with the Ntsb report

50:17

makes clear is that this

50:19

was a problem. On. Boeing

50:21

Factory for this was Boeings problem.

50:25

Two years be focused on

50:27

a piece of ups and

50:29

replaced of unused emergency exit

50:31

called a duplicate going to

50:33

install. More

50:41

smoker. Site where

50:44

was the one.tax on

50:46

back. And make sure

50:48

that the most critical pieces to

50:50

it for their. Nothing

50:53

in plain design or play. production

50:55

is done without several layers of

50:58

redundancies, without frequent inspections, without frequent

51:00

tracks and the idea that something

51:02

as important as a part of

51:04

the flames body complete the factory

51:07

without the both needed. All that

51:09

in place is. This

51:12

was supposed to be one of the

51:14

most highly scrutinised planes and the world.

51:17

And Siri, you are was. Another

51:19

incident that was risking passengers

51:21

lies. Growing Cod

51:23

Come Home was a failure in

51:26

a series of appearances. We're

51:29

going to approach this number one and

51:31

knowledge you for the state or once.

51:33

Everybody everybody on every year for you

51:35

know that Boeing and. Boeing

51:38

is accountable for what happened. And

51:41

event like this simply must not have. We

51:44

own. It is not a zone or answer

51:46

I can give you. The

51:50

door plug was a production failure

51:52

and wasn't designs. Both

51:55

raised questions about Boeing safety,

51:57

culture and the affairs or

51:59

person. The shocking

52:01

thing about the Max

52:03

is this the sheer

52:06

number of of problems

52:08

are. designed, problems, manufacturing

52:10

problems, You Jacobson is

52:12

now working with families of victims of a

52:14

sudden thirty seven. Max. To.

52:17

Bring concerns to the

52:19

affair. And. This is

52:21

after you know this supposedly most

52:23

comprehensive recertification in the history of

52:25

aviation. I think what's most scary

52:28

is that you have both kinds

52:30

of accidents happened at the same

52:32

for. That

52:34

to me reveals sub culture inside

52:36

the company men are. We keep

52:39

coming back to this weren't culture,

52:41

but it's right at the root

52:43

of what happened in both sets

52:45

of accidents. In a

52:47

statement knowing said it is

52:49

dedicated to transparency and it

52:51

is implementing a comprehensive plan.

52:54

Strength to and costs. Less

52:57

than seven weeks after the Alaska Here

52:59

incident. The. Executive running the Max

53:01

program. Was. In

53:05

early March the As the A said it

53:07

had found multiple quality control which where a

53:09

max. The agency. Owings.

53:18

Just. Happen

53:24

overnight special. Yeah. He

53:27

doesn't happen, Just slapped with a

53:30

fine. It's a product of millions

53:32

of decisions. Whatever it might mean

53:34

in terms of lost profits, the

53:37

impact the share price in the

53:39

short term. But if Boeing wants

53:41

to get back to that place

53:44

of Granger where it was for

53:46

so long, wanted the most important

53:49

American companies asked to. Sputter

53:52

my. More

53:56

than one hundred seventy max. Minds were grounded

53:59

by the affair. To be Alaska

54:01

Airlines incident. Nearly

54:04

all are now back in service. Go

54:11

to pds.org/front Line for more is waiting

54:13

for my partners. As a New York

54:16

Times, here you are. With. Another incident

54:18

that was risking passengers. Live.

54:20

Where was the oversight? Where was to

54:22

the redundant tax? I think what's most

54:24

scary is that you have both kinds

54:27

of accidents happened at the same company.

54:29

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critical issues, the John De

55:02

Catherine Team Foundation committed to

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and peaceful world More max

55:09

how not icing silence on

55:12

my knowledge opportunity. An. Assumption

55:16

Not Or and by

55:18

frontlines of. Major support from

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John and her when he color and

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55:25

am committed to bridging cultural differences in

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our communities. In from the Frederick Tree

55:30

Royal Living Trust. Be.

55:50

Fatal. Flaw was written and directed.

55:52

It needs to lives in produced by

55:54

the necessities. Hit Mccormick and he knew

55:56

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56:10

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