Boeing's Fatal Flaw (full documentary) | FRONTLINE 

An update to this award-winning investigation with The New York Times into the design, oversight and production of Boeing’s 737 Max jet is available for streaming here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z76YpCz9N2Y.html

"Boeing has an accountant as their CEO while Airbus has a test flight engineer as their CEO. I think that speaks volumes about each company."

I think it was Sully who said something like "no matter how much a pilot trained or how many hours flown they cannot compensate for a design flaw".. I think this was a great example. RIP.

They murdered these pilots and then blamed them for incompetency. What's more is that I immediately bought their story. Thank you, Frontline, for putting me to shame and reflection.

The fact that this wasn't an end to Boeing as a company is absolutely beyond me!

"The kid got it right" it breaks my heart man.

The fact that no one is facing charges over this is beyond me.

Here after the 737 Max is grounded again after the Alaska airlines incident. RIP to all the victims of these crashes

Who’s here after the Alaska airlines incident

Listening to that Pilot talk about his realization when the First Officer made the right call and was still doomed - man that always gets me. He is an excellent communicator and his emotion is overwhelming even as he manages to keep himself composed.

The system wasn't designed to save people lives, but to save money by avoiding the process of the plane re-certification.

A single sensor failure being able to create a catastrophic event violates ALL principles of redundancy for which American aviation has been based on since at LEAST the late 50s.

As a person who lost a dear young sister in a plane crash it is disturbing to know that Boing CEO left company with millions of dollars of compensation and not being criminally charge.

Thanks to that pilot for recognizing the foreign pilot they tried to blame. “That kid got it right.” He probably got some hate from that statement. That’s real character.🙏🏽

Wow, blaming the pilots whose trainings you prevented and still one of them got it right at one point and it didn’t work. Blaming pilots when all you did was fill your pocket without a care in the world for lives. That’s just evil.

There is more to this story. Boeing used to be a company run by engineers headquartered in Seattle. The safety and engineering excellence of their products was their first priority, and profits would follow. Problems were solved by the engineers with support of the board. After it's merger with Douglas in 1997, Douglas executives took over the board, and in 2001, moved the headquarters to Chicago (i.e., managing the company from 2000 miles away). Do you know why the 737 sits so close to the ground? It was designed for airports that had stairs for boarding rather than jet bridges. To meet Airbus's challenge, rather than building a new, modern replacement for the 737, the bean counters in Chicago decided to band-aid the 50 year old design by adding new larger (diameter and weight) engines rather than producing a new safe, state of the art airplane. To get ground clearance, the engines were moved forward, which moved the center of gravity forward, making the plane more unstable, especially with respect stall characteristics. MCAS was supposed to compensate for that and keep the pilots out of trouble. Pressure from the board short-circuited the development and testing process and led to the debacle that followed. I find it interesting that the board is still making excuses for the failures that were ultimately their responsibility rather than correcting the processes that led to the failures. The board is currently in the process of dismantling the remaining engineering staff in Seattle. Airbus has overtaken Boeing in sales and engineering expertise. China has completed the first flight of their 737 competitor. I have little faith that Boeing will be able to regain its culture and engineering expertise.

$2.5 billion dollar fine.... on a reported $370 billion in preorders. 6.7% of their gross. I pay a higher percentage than that in sales tax for a soda... and it doesn't kill 300 people.

Boeing blame Lion Air pilots for lack of training, and yet they themself trying to keep the training material out of pilot's hands. I was like, "Do you realize what you've just said?"

Im a 737 Pilot coming up on 20 years of flying. I just wanted to say, my hats off to the crew of Lion Air, who did an outstanding job fighting to save that aircraft, and for doing everything right that day for their passengers. Much respect to my fellow pilots, and rest in peace.

The fact no one has been arrested over this is insane

Years later here we are again with doors floating out of max 9s this time

I can understand companies making mistakes. Intentionally allowing them to happen, toss blame elsewhere and then cover it up is a whole other beast.

As a retired airline pilot with 27,000 hours on various Boeing's including the B737 I would like to believe that put in the same scenario when I first noticed a major and irrational movement of the Stabiliser Trim I would have immediately de powered the electric Stab Trim and manually re trimmed prior to entering a high speed condition, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. This aside for Boeing to put a new system on a jet that has the ability to aggressively manipulate the flight controls and is predicated on a single sensor whilst not informing either the pilots or the airlines who operated them is in my view a criminal act and has damaged my view of Boeing irreparably.

I am viewing this video on 1/9/24. From a quote by BBC on the same date: "Alaska Airlines flight 1282 was on a routine flight from Portland in Oregon to Ontario in California, when an unused cabin door broke away a few minutes after take off." Initial investigations find loose door plug bolts on several Boeing 737 MAX 9's. Apparently Boeing has not learned from it's previous mistakes.

This is exactly like the shuttle Challenger blowing up after launch. The engineering staff at Thiokal did not want to fly because of freezing temps and the nearly assured failure of the o-rings to seal. There had been evidence of o-ring damage from thrust blow-by on a previous flight where temps were much higher. NASA pushed to have the engineers change their recommendations. RUSH TO LAUNCH is an excellent documentary on what happened.

50:36 "Do you agree you're not going to write it down?" "No" "Then forget it." Arrogant and despicable!

“I know she wasn’t afraid of flying at all until the last six minutes of her life” damn that’s rough to hear from a mother

RIP to everyone who passed due to the obvious negligence of Boeing and the FAA. Condolences to their families. And especially the pilots who valiantly tried to save their craft.

The negligence of Boeing on the 737 Max debacle is astounding. The fact that no one was held criminally negligent is obscene...

The audacity to intentionally hide the system info from pilots to save money on training, then blaming pilots for not knowing how to react to it when it malfunctions is unbelievable, and infuriating. Ironic how they were calling foreign pilots idiots when they wanted training and then ended up being the real idiots when they were out tons more money, business, etc than they would have been had they did it right the first time.

Former aeronautical engineer. The root cause of the 737 Max tragedy was somewhat under-emphasized in this otherwise excellent documentary: the aerodynamic design of the 737 Max is fundamentally flawed due to the stretched fuselage and larger engines that had to be extended forward, likely to maintain center of gravity limits. In certain regions of the pitch/speed envelope, the aircraft is unstable and will undergo sudden pitch up departure - it even scared the test pilots. The fact that Boeing engineers tried to fix a dangerous aerodynamic flaw in a civil airliner with software originally designed for risk tolerant military aircraft is jaw-droppingly stupid. The design should have been started over from a clean sheet, but I'm sure Boeing management wouldn't have considered that option for more than a millisecond before going with the MCAS fix. The ending was rather abrupt too - they just mention that the Max has been returned to flight. Why? What fixes were applied to the MCAS software? Does the fact that it now uses two AOA sensors really make it fail safe? What happens if both sensors fail? What other failure modes did they identify and fix? Simulator training in MCAS incidents is now recommended, but likely only for the known failure mode that caused the previous crashes. How many thousands of hours of software failure mode analysis by non-Boeing software engineers did the MCAS system undergo before being re-cleared for flight? How many new failure modes did they identify and put into the simulator training program? And the most basic question of all: why is a dangerously unstable design allowed to fly as a commercial airliner in the first place?

Watching this in Jan 2024 after a door plug blowout on 737 max

Watching this in Jan 2024…. RIP Boeing.

I'm a pilot, and I have a cynical saying: The world's important decisions are always made by people who don't have to live with them. This is very true in airlines. The problem here is that runaway trim is so rare, actual recovery has been lost on many. In fact, the trim wheels are smaller than they used to be in the 737. I can't speak for the reasons, but it's obvious that this reduces leverage you have to fix it. The fact is, pilots should have been familiar with how to handle runaway trim. But the manual only goes as far as turning it off. When you turn those wheels, you're turning a jack screw that's over 100' behind you and it's much like the little crank jack you have in your car. Hard to use, but it gets the job done. But the further the trim has been allowed to move as well as the higher the airspeed, the harder it gets to turn. The only way out is to relieve the pressure you're applying to the elevator (and letting the nose just drop even further) to allow that wheel to turn, and then hope you can recover in time. Not ideal when you're close to the ground. Getting back to my first statement: MCAS was NOT enabled when the flaps were extended (as they are for takeoff) or the autopilot on. There is a lot going on after takeoff, and in most aircraft, the current feel of the plane changes quite a lot as flaps are retracted. In most aircraft, the pilot would counteract these changes and apply trim to compensate. The point is, with everything going on, the pilot flying is going to just keep flying and doing the normal thing until something triggers his brain that there's a problem. After an incident involving the E175 where runaway trim was caused by damaged wiring (that was quickly addressed), in our own E175 simulator I was given a surprise runway trim in level flight. It took me just over 3 seconds to recognize it and kill the system. After just that much time, I had to apply very heavy control forces to maintain level flight. And that plane has no physical trim wheel. So however far it goes is what you get to try to land with. Again, that was in straight and level flight with no other anomalies. When these crashes first happened, I was kind of Boeing's side in that, yeah, they should have recognized runaway trim and dealt with it accordingly. But after learning more about what was going on (both aircraft had various warnings and cautions flashing and blaring from takeoff), it is almost impossible to assume this wouldn't have happened. You get distracted trying to figure out what's going on. Then you look up again and think, oh I need to pay attention when you see the plane isn't going where you want. You correct it. Or try to, but something feels off... Is it the trim? It takes time under the best of circumstances. MAYBE some countries have better pilots than others, or at least better trained. But as far as I know, all countries require certification to fly large airplanes like this. And it is both Boeing's and the regulator's responsibility to ensure that the pilots are trained to a level that is necessary. Idk why I typed such a long thing. This was a very good video on the subject. It was a rarely intelligent outside look at an industry that often causes confusion among laymen.

"But what if that one single sensor fails, doesn't everybody die?" BOEING: ".....you're overthinking it. What's for lunch?"

Boeing: "--Safety is-- Profits are our top priority."

“Safety is a our top priority” Well I find that very hard to believe.

You've missed including one memo, back in 2016, of a company pilot saying to a colleague of his: _"This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys"._

All of this can be summed up with: don't put accountants in charge of an engineering organization, especially when the thing being engineered can kill people.

This video reappeared in my feed, now that the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout is in the news. It is sad that no one from Boeing is in jail for the deaths in 2019. I had already watched the documentary years ago. The recent incident shows that the culture of Boeing, to ignore defects and inspection concerns, has not changed. That is frightening for us consumers, who will no doubt be flying Boeing planes.

@ 27:22 While Mark Forkners suggestion to remove MCAS from the manuals was abhorrent, it was actually the FAA who approved his request and allowed Boeing to do as it wanted. Both entities are at fault and BOTH are responsible for the loss of 350 innocent lives. The fact that these entities aren't being charged with manslaughter is unfathomable!

On a positive note, it's refreshing to be reminded of the importance of good journalism

“Slow reaction time (>10s) is unrecoverable”. Is it just me that find it’s absurd to expect someone to see an alarm with several unreliable readings and react the only exact right way within 10s else everyone will die?

Boeing is McDonnell Douglas. Not Boeing. That’s really all you need to know.

When the test pilot got shook up, that brought tears to my eyes.

37:18 seeing Captain Tajer hold back tears is the most moving part of this documentary. Hats off to PBS for putting this together.

Never ceases to amaze me how evil some people are. How can they sleep at night knowing they could have prevented all this.

Summary: cutting corners and corporate greed.

This sure aged well.

It's scary how many disasters have happened after an engineer pointed out a problem and was ignored.

This is the American business mindset since the 1970s when Milton Friedman declared that business “has no social responsibility.” Since then, American quality of manufacturing and service has tanked as companies quashed labor unions and started the trend of making money by sacrificing quality of materials and workmanship - always with the excuse that it was necessary to remain competitive. But, no matter how underpaid or overworked employees are, no matter how many corners are cut, substandard materials employed, the “cost savings” never actually get passed along to the customers. Somehow, all that additional margin finds its way into the pockets of someone who orchestrated the “savings,” executives, and shareholders. A $2.5BN settlement on a $370BN sales run is nothing. Less than 5%? Because the US government is afraid of Boeing? Mark Forkner needs to be tarred and feathered for the frat-boy attitude he wore throughout the entire debacle. And Boeing execs need to be run out of Dodge. All of ‘em. The honor and reputation of America is in the hands of these and other global players who are, as we speak, engaged in the same kind of deceptive, manipulative BS that Boeing got caught doing. All because profit has become not only the most important factor of American business, but is very quickly becoming the ONLY one. Employees who qualify for government aid or insurance, or worse, those that don’t but just barely, contact employees, part-time, gig employees, and the intentional devaluation of American higher education all contribute to the massive profits of big business and the relentless growth of the American stock market. Yes, Boeing has a labor union. But none of the issues addressed in this film had anything to do with workmanship except as it may have been responsible in part for the over-cost and delays because Boeing is notoriously stingy with its workforce in terms of manpower and hours. I know a guy who’s worked at the Renton factory for almost 30 years and the way Boeing treats those guys is flat-out despicable. Like American Express and many other American behemoths, they lay off their workforce regularly to avoid expenses. During these layoffs (whose duration is unknown) employees take unemployment insurance because everyone in America knows that UI is sufficient to keep up your health insurance costs AND the mortgage, car payment, food, and expenses for the kids (not sure how much it is in Washington, but in AZ it’s $260 a week max). Meanwhile, Dennis Muilenburg still sits on a couple of boards and has an estimated net worth of $100 million. Not bad for a heartless, lying POS, huh? See, in keeping with the new American business mission statement, it’s all about setting yourself up at the expense of everyone who works for you, making obscene amounts of money that should be in the pockets of the men and women who actually build those aircraft. Clearly, the guys in charge of design and production, the “leadership” Boeing cited as having failed, isn’t interested in anything else. If a cartel leader killed 300+ people and took enormous amounts of money doing it, he’d land in prison and face civil forfeiture. But a CEO? He “retires” at 56 with a fortune and nothing but time to spend it. Something is wrong with this picture.

I booked a flight on Southwest. As soon as I got on the plane I saw it was a Max 8. I said no thank you and walked right out.

As someone who has built their own airplane, the thought of turning pitch control over to a single sensor is madness.

It is infuriating that those pilots who are just as much victims of Boeing as the passengers are still being smeared to this day. They did everything right and instead of being treated as victims they’re being calling incompetent pilots and having the blame of the hundreds of deaths shifted on them. I can’t imagine how painful this must be for their families, knowing their loved one will forever have a tarnished reputation when they did everything they could to save their passengers. May they Rest In Peace and be remembered as good people.

I find it shocking that the new Boeing CEO would still blame the pilots. Incredible!

Watching this before getting on a 737 MAX in 5 hours

From the bottom of my heart thank you PBS keep up the good work please we need this kind of investigating happening on so many levels of life

with a new CEO with the same attitude as the previous one, Boeing is headed for the pits. May the families that lost their loved ones find comfort

I worked in Boeing's wire shop when this happened. People knew exactly what happened before the FAA was even at the crash sight. No one wanted to point out the failure because at Boeing if you find a problem management immediately blames you for it.

That last bit about the plane being fixed and back in service. Did Not Age Well

This makes sense why a lot of people I've heard from refuse to fly on the 737 Max

What amazes me is that Boeing's current CEO, Calhoun, still blames the Ethiopian pilots, and is still employed by Boeing as their CEO.

The ONE person who was brought up on criminal charges, Forkner, was somehow found not guilty by a jury. Unbelievable. Not a single person connected to Boeing went to prison.

After the door blew off, off the other MAX, Boeing’s reputation has really taken a nosedive. No pun intended.

This should be required watch for all these bean counter executives before they sign their golden parachute contract.

The fact that this documentary is free.

20 years ago, my wife and 3 yr. old son were on a Boeing 737 from Atlanta to BWI. As we approached the runway to land, a strong cross-wind from an impending storm caused us to loose lift. The plane dropped in elevation and banked to the left, into the wind, to regain lift, narrowly missing trees below the left wing. We rerouted to Virginia to land. We all deboarded and met with the pilot. He looked like Captain Kangaroo. Friendly full face, grey hair. He was asked where this ranked on his aircraft scares. He said, it's the closest I have ever came to crashing an airliner. That is all I needed to hear. Never again was I afraid to fly, until I watched this documentary.

A few days ago this same model of plane had its middle emergency exit blow out at 15,000 feet over PDX a few minutes after takeoff, it is SHOCKING that the FDA didnt take this model off the market entirely, and I hope Boeing actually faces real consequences this time.

Denis Muilenberg could care less for the loss of lives of over 300 from the two 737 max accidents. He walked away with millions from Boeing. He never lost a minute of sleep from the loss of humanity.

The fact that the simulator pilot crashed because of MCAS and they ignored it is crazy to me.

Boeing lied, people died. - Former Boeing fan

38:00 this whole segment, the audio mix, how the interviewee is emotionally explaining what is going on brought me to tears "the kid got it right"

This is one of the MAJOR issues with engineers and administrators of big companies not being the ones to use whatever product they are making themselves. There is a level of disconnect that allows people to gamble (in this situation with people’s lives) because they don’t have firsthand knowledge of what it would be like to actually implement systems and procedures. Everything that makes sense on paper, doesn’t always work out and when you have people who don’t value the risks from firsthand experience, it’s easier to just sweep them under the rug.

It’s amazing no one has faced any criminal charges for this.

I've watched a lot of documentaries on the Max, this is the best, most comprehensive mainstream documentary to date. Well done. I didn't realise that Colquhoun still maintained that US pilots would have managed differently. It's extremely disappointing that Boeing still won't accept the fact, that regardless of whether it was technically possible to save the flights or not, they created a system which took a completely normal, functioning and controllable aeroplane, and pointed it straight at the ground at low altitude. It's like throwing someone in a pit with a lion and then blaming them for not being able to climb out fast enough before being mauled to death.

If it’s a Boeing, I’m not going

You've heard, "Money makes the world go 'round, . . . " - " and helps the plane go down . . . " . This is damn scary news.

I can say that Forkner killed 346 people because he dismissed the idea of pilot training and even called the pilot stupid and idiot! now we can see who was the stupid and idiot!

As a teacher you learn the average student can't be trusted to correct their own work. The same applies to financial reporting, pharmaceuticals and engineering. Regulatory capture is one heck of a thing.

Some of the most brutally honest journalism I have seen in years! So refreshing! Thanks Frontline!

This is so informative! Great job, fantastic reporting!🌻🌼🐝 Keep it up 🙌

The computers processing MCAS were at least doubly or perhaps triple-redundant yet relied on one sensor. My students would be failed.

I worked for Boeing for 20 years. I absolutely loved my job. I was proud to be an employee. However once I found out that the company I loved cared more about making money than customer safety…..I quit. I didn’t want to be a part of that and there I was; a part of it.

I was on a 737 Max flight. During takeoff we were undert a hundred feet off the ground with runway still under us. Suddenly, the plane pitched down violently. the pilot pulled it back up, but the plane was rolling heavily side to side. He increased speed and the plane straightened out. The rest of the flight went fine. Looking back at that ; it must have been the MCAS. The pilot or 1st officer must have known about this MCAS propensity; because, he stopped the pitch down within a second. Otherwise, we would of plowed into the ground. The cockpit said nothing.

The "safety" or their stock price was Boeing's top priority clearly. And Mark Forkner should be in prison.

The investigative journalism in this documentary is 🏆🏆🏆

Damn, it has been 2 years since this documentary and one whistleblower found dead.

Honest and couragious report - thank you and congrats. 😥

When it comes to attitudes about foreign (non-western) pilots, it sounds like the new CEO might not be much better than the one he replaced.

Mark Forkner should be ashamed of himself. He didn't behave like a chief pilot, he behaved like a corporate ladder climber trying to improve his career.

2024 and the 737 MAX its back on the news.

love PBS Documentaries

Dennis Tajer looks absolutely devastated speaking about the cockpit voice recorder. They almost got it...

If corporations are people and money is speech, why don't we hold these people criminally accountable for decisions that directly lead to the deaths of several hundred people?

I'm just watching this, I literally had to stop eating my dinner as it made me sick to my stomach. Shame on both Boeing and the FAA, I am completely disgusted. God bless the families and God rest those ' souls '

More than three years after the loss of these 346 souls who are statistics to Boeing I still weep and listen to the end. Unbelievable and unbearable. 346! Two young and amazing captains. Families bereaved forever. I admire the mother talking about her daughter. The young man talking about his mum sister and nieces and nephew. We weep with you all.

37:10 was so hard for me to watch. To listen to that pilot go through the flight and react emotionally to what happened was so powerful and sad.

They did the same thing 40 yrs ago with the DC 10. They let it stay in the air with a faulty cargo door lock and 374 ppl died in the flight 981 accident.

There’s a documentary here in RU-vid about the development of the 777. The project timeline dictated everything. I found it chilling. Boeing’s corporate culture to cut corners long precedes the Max.

RIP to all those who lost their lives on a crash.