The Questionable Engineering of the 737 Max

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Credits:
Producer/Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Head of Production: Mike Ridolfi
Senior Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Research Assistant: Josi Gold
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Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster
Head of Moral: Shia LeWoof

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Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.

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[ramonbalster]

Multiple crashes is bad for reputation... But RE calling your engineering 'questionable' instead of 'insane' is brutal

[chriscampbell]

I worked as a QA inspector for 13 years at Boeing. I was one of the first laid off and I knew it was because I was very vocal about the lack of quality because of increased demand.

I specifically said in a town hall meeting that “Planes will start dropping if we don’t stop sacrificing quality to increase production”. Later that day I was written up for that comment.

When I heard of the layoffs I started to prepare because I knew I was going and sure enough on the first day I was called in given my severance and escorted out of the building.

[SteveGouldinSpain]

I had dinner with an accountant years ago (yeah, my one night off..). It turned out to be one of the most gripping nights of my life. He worked for an airline. Companies like Boeing would issue frequent advisory maintenance fixes for each model of plane. His job was as an actuary, to calculate the cost of carrying out the fix for the fleet, against the possible cost should an accident occur as a result of not applying the fix. It was quite complex because time is a factor - how much downtime would there be etc, and which routes would be least or worst affected. Anyway the guy had us on the edges of our seats all night as he regaled us with stories of seats falling out of the backs of aeroplanes and engines catching fire. It was quite a night. My takeaway is that airlines have the value of our lives worked out to the nearest penny in an Excel spreadsheet.

[f_pie]

RIP John Barnett, you will be remembered for standing up for what's right...

[fmvsuhv]

My ex wife just retired from Boeing after 42 years. She Originally was an engineer with McDonnell Douglas, and was "merged" into Boeing during what she termed "the reverse acquisition" (Where MD capital management wound up controlling Boeing). Her experience was that Boeing Was an Engineering-First driven company, and MD was always a Profit-First company. Some remember that the MD DC-10 had been involved in 55 accidents and incidents, including 32 hull-loss accidents, with 1, 261 occupant fatalities. All because of the MD management culture of shareholder value, which they brought into Boeing.

[kaliss]

People trying to fix an engineering issue with software is basically the new standard in every industry.

[mikoaj]

I think the fact that a Boeing not only didn't punish the executive responsible for bad management decisions but gave him a multimillion parting bonus says everything there is to be said about this company.

[Brownyman]

"The Questionable Death of John Barnett"

[jenweatherwax]

Used to work at Boeing. It’s all penny pinching management. Mechanics concerns are ignored and we’re worked to the bone to go faster so they can lay us off faster. Also, production was spread out far and wide to save money and caused quality to go to hell - the story of all companies, but terrifying when it happens to airplanes.

[stellargravitywell]

8:11 I was slightly hopeful you were going to say "$62 million fine". The fact that man got off with that kind of money in his pocket after 300+ killed is nothing short of infuriating.

[millenniumf]

As someone living in Wichita and working on aircraft cables for Spirit, its usually their management responsible for cost saving corner cutting. They demand we work with older, photocopied form boards (the blueprints for the cable, essentially) until we pressure them for months to send us vector graphic form boards, and these old photocopies are honestly some of the hardest documents I've ever had to interpret with fuzzy text and illegible dimensions. In addition, they give us documentation that you can't easily decipher without help when other companies, like Sundstrand, are capable of giving us easily discernable documentation. Its a miracle anything gets built to any kind of spec at my job with what they give us.

[loso]

lives are risked so a small group of people can just have bigger yachts, more expensive cars & vacation homes. all of these issues are symptoms of greed.

[jeffsprague]

I work in nuclear power, and what's crazy is my industry derived a lot of its safety culture, corrective action programs, issue identification & resolution policies, and regulatory oversight management from the aviation industry, but they've loosened the reigns while we've stayed the course. The new push for 'innovate fast and get it to market' is a dumb way to run a business with this much at stake, and we've been seeing more and more examples of that recently

[CycloneCyd]

"Hey guys, we've got a fundamental Engineering problem with the stability of our plane". Management: "No worries, we'll fix it with some software". 🤷
As a professional Automotive Engineer, I can tell you it just doesn't work like that. It will nearly always end in tears.
Software should only be used to augment fundamental Physics, where the fundamental physics is already correct, NOT fight with the Physics.

[Shattereddemon]

That scream when the door plug blew off in the video, what the heck, bro are you kidding me right now.😂😂😂

[michaelgoetze]

I think Boeing has more of a management problem that an engineering problem.

[elliottre]

I worked over thirty years in Maintenace. Most inspection routes were just signed off and never completed because management told us not to worry about doing routes. Just sign them off as completed. The more routes signed off as completed, the larger the management's bonus. Grunts didn't get bonuses. When people would ask why I was doing the routes, I would tell that if we were an airline our planes would be falling out of the skies. It was a good thing we were a processing center. I have talked to airline mechanics over the years, and they have had similar stories. I don't fly anymore. Maintenace problems are usually traced back to bad management.

[aliabdallah]

Next video: the insane engineering of Boeing whistleblowrs' deaths

[anarchosnowflakist]

thanks a lot for your video ! I love the very engineering focus of your channel but it's a thing I see too often in the field (and in the people who gravitate around it) where people refuse to talk about systemic problems or just blame it on individuals or on engineers not being in charge enough, so you mentioning the fact that it's a much broader problem with the prioritization of revenue (whether we call that corporate greed or market forces) over listening to workers and regulations is a really important thing that I wish more people would talk about

[jacob_s]

Boeing's managements needs to remember that they're not selling transportation; they're selling SAFE transportation.
Air planes fall into the same category as elevators, in that people like the idea but are terrified of it in practice, and the only way it has found wide spread acceptance is by being so damn safe that people just had to get over their fears, but the backlash from this does have the possibility of affecting the entire airline industry.